Context: The key fault-lines visible during the handling of the pandemic must be addressed
Some key fault lines that must be addressed
Inability of the government to deliver: in providing security to the citizens and delivering on their right to health and education.
This should call for improving the mechanisms of delivery rather than abdicating responsibility and handing over the baton to the private corporate sector.
On the contrary, the most rapidly growing and most profitable sectors in the Indian economy are private security, private education, and private health care.
Government decision making should be evidence-based: and subject to independent and critical evaluation.
There should be carefully designed pilot projects to determine feasibility. There must be independent evaluation after implementation to inculcate learnings for the future
Creating public awareness must be part and parcel of project planning.
Avoid creating an arbitrage economy that favours “rents” rather than reward risk-taking and entrepreneurship.
This is widespread in the Indian economy, and we witness its ugly consequences in the desperate search for oxygen, hospital beds, and critical medicines.
Before imposing controls and regulations, the state must ensure that it has in place the administrative machinery and processes to implement them effectively.
There is no substitute for knowledge, expertise, and professionalism.
We have blundered into this crisis by ignoring warnings from experts.
We have created an environment where the role of the professional is to validate a political preference.
We have allowed a steady regression into obscurantism instead of promoting the “scientific temper.”