Coordination and Governance of S&T Structure and Infrastructure in India

Avinash, P. Banerjee, Kasturi Mandal
{"title":"Coordination and Governance of S&T Structure and Infrastructure in India","authors":"Avinash, P. Banerjee, Kasturi Mandal","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1489320","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Over several decades of developmental investments and developmental democratic public governance, India has experimented with and has evolved a very complex web of ST however, ST (2) as part of instrument/capacity build up; and (3) as part of a major national mission such as on space. Apart from the fund from line ministry, a proposing organization may seek fund from extramural facility of another ministry, or from the instrument/capacity build up funds from other line ministries. A facility such created is in general a dedicated (or laboratory) facility, not easily accessible to outside researchers or outside private parties. Fees based laboratories do exist in India but their functions are almost always limited to testing, standardization, certification areas and/or they happen to belong to public executive authorities such as on standards. Private fees based laboratories do exist at higher secondary school science level and at undergraduate levels. Infrastructure level research, experimentation facilities are yet to come up. A large number of specialized research institutes have come up over the years. The Research and Development Statistics 2007-08, from the Department of Science and Technology reported the presence of 3,960 RD especially, the number of laboratories with the CSIR constitutes less than 1% of the total number of R&D laboratories in the country. State-wise distribution, as per the DST Research and Development Statistics at a Glance 2007-08, is: Maharashtra with 835 R&D institutions, Tamil Nadu with 402, Andhra Pradesh with 338, Delhi with 321, Karnataka with 311, Gujarat with 273, West Bengal with 260, Uttar Pradesh with 223, Kerala with 139 and the rest of the states with the remaining 858 R&D institutions. The private sector has R&D departments/units with respective economic enterprises and sometimes with trusts supported by such private enterprises. Moreover, there are S&T/R&D units with several social sector NGOs/NPOs. Last few years have seen foreign companies investing in owned R&D establishments in India. Professional scientific societies or associations are weak in India relative to several advanced countries, notably the USA. Role of professional control in management of S&T organizations has remained sparse, few and far between, and is often exercised in conjunction with administrative organs and under typically governmental administrative rules, budgetary practices, cash flow managements, information channel controls, organizational processes, audit requirements as prevail in respective ministries/departments controlling the concerned S&T/R&D organization. The peer controls, the gate keeping roles and peer hand-holding or reviews etc. are naturally very weak and do accommodate administrative rules and principles. It is understood that although over the years growth of S&T infrastructure has taken place significantly, the achievements are yet to become very promising. The socio-economic sector laboratories which are expected to harness S&T for the developmental aspects of the society quite often suffer from mismatch and are expected to perform up to their expected targets. The key reasons behind such mismatch could be shifts in and softening of governance, poor S&T infrastructure including laboratories and workshops, multiplicity of S&T goals, changing S&T charters and research agenda, locked-up levels of skills and competencies of personnel, among others. Absence often of transparent coordination mechanisms or instruments renders this large structure weak. Goals multiplication and shifting charters/agenda often appears to have resulted from changes in governance structures and governance imperatives. This in turn results in a fuzzy set of expected deliverables and locked-up skills and competencies of personnel. Almost always research institutes are run under administrative rules and structures analogous to those prevailing in, and for, the line ministries. The public audit system too has very significant influence on modes of functioning and the capability to deliver. We also find that India has a huge S&T infrastructure in which there is wide variance in the governance structure. The gains from such varied structures have definitely been very impressive, however, with one caveat. Unlike a singular mode of governance where gains are defined well and beforehand and where measurement of gains are easily computable, visible and are large – the Indian web of federated democratized stakeholders-related governances have defined multiple goals, varied types of deliverables, complex modes of negotiations and regulations and the Indian governances have therefore delivered very large number of relatively inscrutable grass-roots gains that are not easily amenable to accumulation. In fact, standard instruments of direction such as laws and audit systems have accommodated, especially in the phases of implementation of S&T based developmental programs, the roles of negotiation and aspirations of the local structures of governance. The distinct gains from this very distributed mode of goals and governances are that widely distributed capacity and very diverse capabilities have been sustained and generated. This is perhaps very unique to India and few nations can be proud of such great diversities. The future of Indian S&T and the developmental discourse needs to recognize these albeit weak very diverse capacities, capabilities, gains and governances as the central feature.","PeriodicalId":108610,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Infrastructure (Topic)","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2009-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PSN: Infrastructure (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1489320","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Over several decades of developmental investments and developmental democratic public governance, India has experimented with and has evolved a very complex web of ST however, ST (2) as part of instrument/capacity build up; and (3) as part of a major national mission such as on space. Apart from the fund from line ministry, a proposing organization may seek fund from extramural facility of another ministry, or from the instrument/capacity build up funds from other line ministries. A facility such created is in general a dedicated (or laboratory) facility, not easily accessible to outside researchers or outside private parties. Fees based laboratories do exist in India but their functions are almost always limited to testing, standardization, certification areas and/or they happen to belong to public executive authorities such as on standards. Private fees based laboratories do exist at higher secondary school science level and at undergraduate levels. Infrastructure level research, experimentation facilities are yet to come up. A large number of specialized research institutes have come up over the years. The Research and Development Statistics 2007-08, from the Department of Science and Technology reported the presence of 3,960 RD especially, the number of laboratories with the CSIR constitutes less than 1% of the total number of R&D laboratories in the country. State-wise distribution, as per the DST Research and Development Statistics at a Glance 2007-08, is: Maharashtra with 835 R&D institutions, Tamil Nadu with 402, Andhra Pradesh with 338, Delhi with 321, Karnataka with 311, Gujarat with 273, West Bengal with 260, Uttar Pradesh with 223, Kerala with 139 and the rest of the states with the remaining 858 R&D institutions. The private sector has R&D departments/units with respective economic enterprises and sometimes with trusts supported by such private enterprises. Moreover, there are S&T/R&D units with several social sector NGOs/NPOs. Last few years have seen foreign companies investing in owned R&D establishments in India. Professional scientific societies or associations are weak in India relative to several advanced countries, notably the USA. Role of professional control in management of S&T organizations has remained sparse, few and far between, and is often exercised in conjunction with administrative organs and under typically governmental administrative rules, budgetary practices, cash flow managements, information channel controls, organizational processes, audit requirements as prevail in respective ministries/departments controlling the concerned S&T/R&D organization. The peer controls, the gate keeping roles and peer hand-holding or reviews etc. are naturally very weak and do accommodate administrative rules and principles. It is understood that although over the years growth of S&T infrastructure has taken place significantly, the achievements are yet to become very promising. The socio-economic sector laboratories which are expected to harness S&T for the developmental aspects of the society quite often suffer from mismatch and are expected to perform up to their expected targets. The key reasons behind such mismatch could be shifts in and softening of governance, poor S&T infrastructure including laboratories and workshops, multiplicity of S&T goals, changing S&T charters and research agenda, locked-up levels of skills and competencies of personnel, among others. Absence often of transparent coordination mechanisms or instruments renders this large structure weak. Goals multiplication and shifting charters/agenda often appears to have resulted from changes in governance structures and governance imperatives. This in turn results in a fuzzy set of expected deliverables and locked-up skills and competencies of personnel. Almost always research institutes are run under administrative rules and structures analogous to those prevailing in, and for, the line ministries. The public audit system too has very significant influence on modes of functioning and the capability to deliver. We also find that India has a huge S&T infrastructure in which there is wide variance in the governance structure. The gains from such varied structures have definitely been very impressive, however, with one caveat. Unlike a singular mode of governance where gains are defined well and beforehand and where measurement of gains are easily computable, visible and are large – the Indian web of federated democratized stakeholders-related governances have defined multiple goals, varied types of deliverables, complex modes of negotiations and regulations and the Indian governances have therefore delivered very large number of relatively inscrutable grass-roots gains that are not easily amenable to accumulation. In fact, standard instruments of direction such as laws and audit systems have accommodated, especially in the phases of implementation of S&T based developmental programs, the roles of negotiation and aspirations of the local structures of governance. The distinct gains from this very distributed mode of goals and governances are that widely distributed capacity and very diverse capabilities have been sustained and generated. This is perhaps very unique to India and few nations can be proud of such great diversities. The future of Indian S&T and the developmental discourse needs to recognize these albeit weak very diverse capacities, capabilities, gains and governances as the central feature.
印度科技结构与基础设施的协调与治理
在几十年的发展投资和发展民主公共治理中,印度已经试验并发展了一个非常复杂的科技网络,然而,科技(2)作为工具/能力建设的一部分;(3)作为重大国家任务的一部分,例如太空任务。除了来自部门的资金外,提议组织可以从其他部门的外部设施中寻求资金,或者从其他部门的工具/能力建设资金中寻求资金。这样创建的设施通常是专用的(或实验室)设施,外部研究人员或外部私人团体不容易进入。印度确实存在收费实验室,但它们的功能几乎总是局限于测试、标准化、认证领域和/或它们恰好属于公共行政机构,如标准部门。私立收费实验室确实存在于高等中学科学水平和本科水平。基础设施水平的研究、实验设施尚未到位。这些年来出现了一大批专门的研究机构。来自科技部的《2007-08年研究与发展统计》报告了3,960个研发中心的存在,特别是CSIR实验室的数量占全国研发实验室总数的不到1%。根据DST 2007-08年度研发统计数据,各邦分布如下:马哈拉施特拉邦有835家研发机构,泰米尔纳德邦有402家,安得拉邦有338家,德里有321家,卡纳塔克邦有311家,古吉拉特邦有273家,西孟加拉邦有260家,北方邦有223家,喀拉拉邦有139家,其余邦有858家研发机构。私营部门的研发部门/单位有各自的经济企业,有时也有这些私营企业支持的信托机构。此外,还有一些科技/研发单位与一些社会领域的非政府组织/非营利组织合作。过去几年,外国公司在印度投资自有研发机构。与几个发达国家(尤其是美国)相比,印度的专业科学学会或协会较弱。专业控制在科技组织管理中的作用仍然是稀疏的,很少的,而且往往是与行政机关一起行使的,通常是在政府行政规则、预算实践、现金流管理、信息渠道控制、组织流程、审计要求等方面,在控制相关科技/研发组织的各个部委/部门中盛行。同伴控制、把关角色、同伴手把手或评审等自然是非常弱的,并且确实符合管理规则和原则。据了解,尽管多年来科技基础设施的增长显著,但成果尚未变得非常有希望。社会经济部门的实验室被期望利用科技促进社会的发展,但往往存在不匹配的问题,人们期望它们达到预期目标。这种不匹配背后的关键原因可能是治理的转变和软化、糟糕的科技基础设施(包括实验室和车间)、科技目标的多样性、不断变化的科技章程和研究议程、人员的技能和能力水平被锁定等等。缺乏透明的协调机制或工具往往会使这个庞大的结构变得脆弱。目标的增加和章程/议程的变化通常是由于治理结构和治理要求的变化造成的。这反过来又导致了一组模糊的预期可交付成果,以及人员的技能和能力被锁定。几乎所有的研究机构都是按照类似于直属部委的行政规则和结构来运行的。公共审计制度对其运作方式和执行能力也有非常重要的影响。我们还发现,印度拥有庞大的科技基础设施,其中的治理结构差异很大。然而,从这些不同的结构中获得的收益无疑是非常令人印象深刻的,有一点需要注意。与单一的治理模式不同,在单一的治理模式中,收益是事先明确定义的,收益的衡量是容易计算的,可见的,而且是巨大的——印度的民主的利益相关者相关的治理网络定义了多个目标,各种类型的可交付成果,复杂的谈判和监管模式,因此印度的治理提供了大量相对难以理解的基层收益,这些收益不容易积累。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信