Understanding corruption in West Bengal: is decentralisation the answer?

Those advocating good governance through decentralisation see state agents as the prime cause of corruption. They praise civil society’s role in making politicians and bureaucrats accountable. However, evidence from the Indian state of West Bengal suggests that ‘rent-seeking’ – manipulation of the economic environment for private gain – may be equally driven by businessmen and so-called community leaders.

A paper from the University ofGuelph, Canada, University of Sheffield andthe London School of Economics, UK, assesses the complex relations between thestate and civil society in rural West Bengal, India. The authors look at howfunds from India’s Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) have been used (or misused) to showhow influential locals can be accomplices to, or prime agents of, networks ofcorruption.

When the EAS was set up central government plannersset out to break the networks between bureaucrats, politicians and privatecontractors by including local communities in scheme implementation andmonitoring. The EAS aims to provide upto 100 days oflocal employment for a maximum of two adults per household when no agriculturalwork is available. Labour-intensive projects to benefit poor people, involvingroads, soil conservation, irrigation and schools, are given priority.

To stop leakage of EAS funds central and state level planners bannedprivate contractors from the projects. They also designed a complex monitoringsystem combining a set of accountabilities: downward accountability to thecommunity, horizontal accountability between those on the same level, andupward accountability to higher levels of the bureaucracy. The system wasdesigned to prevent corrupt linkages among beneficiary committees, localcouncillors and local government officers.

In the two communities studied payment ofbribes to state officials – particularly to obtain birth certificates, rationcards and land deeds – is commonplace. Both communities have identical EASmonitoring procedures, yet their effectiveness has varied greatly: 

• In the multi-caste,multi-faith community of Old Malda, politics is based on networks of patronageand violence, not on strong party organisations.
• This environment hasallowed an emerging class of political entrepreneurs, not generally belongingto the traditional elite, to use the decentralised state for private gain.
• In Debra, West Bengal’s ruling party, theCommunist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), has limited fund theft through tightcontrol of local councillors, executing agents and beneficiary committees.
• The CPI-M may havecontrolled leakage of EAS funds in Debra, but its workers have diverted moneyto the party.

Policymakers should understand that:

• Underlying socialstructures can inhibit participation of poor and marginalised people and makedemocratic decentralisation and community-based monitoring less effective.
• Participatorydecentralisation is not a complete solution for reducing corruption: there are alwaysgroups within communities ready to collude with bureaucrats and politicians.
• Without effective vertical(upward and downward) political and administrative accountability and control –including judicial involvement – horizontal accountability structures betweenlocal civil society and officials can readily turn into networks of corruption.