Rajasthan priorities early childhood development, shariff

1. Digitization
Ritu Srivastava and Eshita Mukherjee
Digital Empowerment Foundation
Rajasthan Priorities conference, Jaipur June 8-10 2018

2. Digitization
• ICT is a cross sectional subject and aims to bring efficiency,
accessibility, transparency through connectivity to all the social and
economic issues that were and will be discussed today.
• It is also practical and is economically one of the most cost effective
medium to reach a large population like that of Rajasthan
• Rajasthan has adopted this route for framing each government action
crystal clear. It’s not just the adoption of digital programs, but
educating people about the technology.
• Example:
E-mitra kendras are opened to processes various entitlement services

3. Rajasthan sampark: provides a the facility to register grievances online
and also gives a detailed trail of the actions taken
• Effective broadband infrastructure enables citizens to participate in
the governance system by improving access to information. Thus, In-
order to reap the optimal benefit of these services at state level, the
central government initiated the National Optic Fiber Network in
Rajasthan in 2011 connecting 9900 Gram Panchayats
• And in 2009 began the Aadhaar scheme to remove duplicity and
corruption in the existing system through ICT intervention

4. 1st analyzed solution
Expand UID (Aadhaar) based payments for MGNREGA

5. Large sum of money spent on social welfare schemes through a range of subsidies
and targeted poverty reduction programs. However, most of the programs have come
under the scanner for various implementation and service delivery issues.
• Paper analyses how the use of ICT-based biometric technology
(Aadhaar) can prove beneficial to:
•Reduce corruption
•Increase income
•Increase efficiency
•Reduce transaction time
• How this technology can be used to better the world’s largest
employment guarantee program (if at all)
• It examines the major costs and benefits of linking the last group of
unconnected MGNREGA workers to the Aadhaar scheme.

6. Current Scenario in Rajasthan as of March 2018
93
-
93
7 7
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Percentage of
active workers
in Rajasthan
MGNREGA
with Aadhaar
Percentage
ofactive
workers in
Rajasthan
without DBT
Percentage of
active workers
in Rajasthan
with DBT
Percentage of
active workers
in Rajasthan
to be provided
aadhaar
numbers
Percentage of
active workers
in Rajasthan
to be provided
DBT
Current Scenario in percentage
Current baseline Scenario

7. Linking the last section of the unconnected MGNREGA population in
Rajasthan to Aadhaar through positive reinforcement
Costs involved
a) Cost of enrolling new MGNREGA workers to Aadhaar,
b) Cost of seeding: linking new and old Aadhaar number to MGNREGA
c) Reoccurring cost of Devices
d) Privacy ( not included)
Benefits incurred
a) leakages due to duplicity in the system
b) leakages due to deception (Khera 2016,2017)
c) Inculcation of the habit of saving amongst workers (Not included)
d) The Aadhaar scheme can help improve access to other benefits (Not included)

8. Costs
• Cost of enrolling new 7% of total active MNREGS workers to be provided
Aadhaar and DBT after intervention: The cost per person for this is estimated at
Rs. 315, including personal costs towards time and travel. The total cost of this
component is Rs. 4.5 crore.
• Cost of seeding: linking new and old Aadhaar number to NREGA : The cost per
person for this is Rs. 156. With 6 lakh workers requiring linkage to DBT, the cost of
this component is estimated at Rs. 9.5 crore.
• Recurring cost of devices and its maintenance and connectivity have been
calculated on a yearly basis at Rs. 1.3 crore in the first year, projected downwards
for likely counterfactual growth in Aadhaar enrolments. The total cost of the
intervention is Rs. 24 crore over a period of 15 years at a 5 percent discount
rate.

9. Benefits
• Gains yielded from reduction in two types of leakages have been
estimated
a) leakages due to duplicity in the system
b) leakages due to deception
• Total wage expenditure is the sum of the actual expenditure and
payment due on unskilled wages at Rs. 3,351 crore.
• The percentage of leakages as per Economic Survey 2016-17 is
20 percent
• Expected reduction in leakages due to Aadhaarenabled DBT
(reduction in duplication and deceit) is 41 percent (Murlidharan,
Neihaus et al, 2016) of 20 percent.

10. Benefit Cost Ratio
Discount rate
3% 5% 8%
Benefit (Crore) 171 150 125
Cost (Crore) 25 24 23
BCR 7 6 6

11. Conclusion
• The proposed intervention is seen as measure to make optimal use of
public money already invested in the Aadhaar framework.
• Although the derived BCR ratio of 6 is a positive indication towards
adoption of Aadhaar, there is still a need to do a cross-sectional
analysis of the Aadhaar framework to understand its complexities.
• Improve the monitoring and implementation system as Aadhaar as a
number will not be able to solve most of the existing issues in the
system.
• Several other unaccounted costs and benefits : Privacy and the
general-equilibrium effects of the intervention (Muralidharan,
Neihaus and Sukhtankar (2018))

12. 2nd analyzed solution
Connect rural households to national fibre optic network

13. Importance of the intervention
• Fixed broadband penetration in the country is 1.4% (ITU 2017)
• Existing rural population in Rajasthan have fixed broadband connection is
1.40%
• Various theories have stated the impact of broadband on GDP. The developing
countries have enjoyed 1.38 percentage point increase in their GDP for each 10
percent increase in broadband penetration
• This intervention measures the impact of connecting the unconnected GPs and
rural households through NOFN

14. Current status of NOFN in Rajasthan
• No of GPs in Rajasthan = 9900
• Till date, no of GPs connected = 8155
• Remaining GPs to be connected = 1745
• No of occupied households in Rajasthan: 12092776
• Optical Fiber Cable Laid in KMs = 23912
• Optical Fiber Cable required to cover all Villages other than GPs (in
KMs) = 101958

15. Description of the solution
• National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), an ambitious initiative to trigger
broadband revolution in rural India, is creating a robust middle network
infrastructure layer to connect gram panchayats of the country through
broadband connectivity.
• This intervention calculates the costs and benefits of connecting the
unconnected GPs connecting rural households to broadband using the
NOFN Infrastructure
• We find that though there is a considerable cost of connecting the
remaining gram panchayats and households, the benefits are much higher.
• We find a positive benefit cost ratio of 10 at the 5% level using wired
infrastructure to connect households

16. Costs
There are four categories of cost associated with this intervention 1) cost of connecting the
remaining GPs and ongoing maintenance; 2) cost to connect remaining households and
ongoing maintenance; 3) upgrading the data centre cost to connect institutions (such as
public health centre (PHC), schools, government agencies, etc) and 4) costs of accessing
broadband services.
Cost of connecting remaining GPs 508
Cost of connecting HHs 2,673
Operations cost for NOFN including data center
upgrades 16,242
Operations cost for HH connections 3,919
Costs of accessing broadband 3,159
Total (undiscounted) 26,502
PV of Total cost at 5% discount rate is Rs. 7780 crores

17. Benefits
• By 2035, GSDP boost is 0.1%; by
2050, the boost is 0.2% and by
2067 it is 0.3%
• The incremental boost to GSDP is
Rs. 135 crore by 2020, Rs. 3,233
crore by 2035 and Rs. 27,299
crore by 2067.
• Total benefits until 2067 equal
81,552 crores at a 5% discount
rate.
y = 12.8ln(x) - 104.69
R² = 0.7493
-20.0
-10.0
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000
Broadbandpenetration(%)
Income per capita, 2015 Int $
Relationship between income and fixed
broadband penetration

18. Total benefits and cost-benefit ratio
Interventions Discount
Rate
Benefit
(INR in
crore)
Cost
(INR in
crore)
BCR Quality of
Evidence
Providing the NOFN
connectivity from gram
panchayat (GP) to
household (HH) level using
wired infrastructure
3% 156,022 11,878 13 Medium
5% 81,552 7,780 10 Medium
8% 34,455 4,763 7 Medium

19. Thank you