In what ways do policies affect a city's economic growth?

Walk Before You Can Run Research aim: Understanding the policies and their consequences on society over time Authors: Vijay Kelkar (2019), Ajay Shah (2019). In Service of the Republic.

This book focuses on the Indian economy and the framework that shaped it over decades. Authors have tried to showcase the ups and downs of Indian policies and their consequences over time. We can strongly feel the author's views on having sustainable & advanced economic growth through policies that will create an efficient workforce over time.

The book is divided into seven chapters, focusing on diversified topics related to Indian urban governance. I choose to typically examine the 'Walk before you can run sub-topic of 'public policy process.

This topic is broadly divided into five elements; the first is 'capacity building,' which focuses on the failures in the policy process and the urge for a well-meaning policy process to emerge with the correct answers. The author's prime focus was on India's early stages of capacity building. Through an interesting example, we could imagine the worth of this element during policy making. It was the 'Indian pension reforms in 1995', where there was no planning, data, research & no diversification of ideas or inputs taken while preparing it. It was not a surprise how adding the Employee Pension Scheme in the 1990s to the same policy at a very early stage made it difficult to manage it with such low economic capability in India. Even managing Delhi's air pollution crisis was a failure; they tried to rush with solutions to stop it for a while, to handle the social pressure. Through these examples, the author focuses on the unawareness of the capacities that lead to unstable policies, which are of no use to the people of society.

The most critical part of capacity building is 'Prerequisites,' which help make decisions one after the other. It is like a butterfly effect; how one action leads to another at different places. Same with systems in a policy, how a system a,b,c is required to work the system q,r,s. Here the author tries to explain prerequisites using a statistical system involved in the monetary policy of a state or a country. It is not always the more significant the GDP projection of a county, the greater the growth. There is always a second side to the coin; if the estimated GDP of a county is higher, the government's tax collection and borrowing capacity are higher, leading to terribly high tax targets and borrowing schemes in counties outside countries bearing capacity. "This suggests a natural sequencing: A country should build trusted GDP estimates before it uses GDP values in fiscal planning." From in Service of the Republic, (Published book by Vijay Kelkar, Ajay Shah, 2019). Copyright 2019 by Global Penguin Random House.

While building capacity (BC), the author has highlighted the importance of creating the base for all the steps. The primary goal of (BC) should define simple benchmarks for state-level capacity and succeed in doing so, and we should only attempt a more challenging problem after that. From the book, we could also infer that small-scale strategies should be made; for example, In terms of taxation, building a tax system with high tax rates is significantly more complex, so it makes sense to start understanding how to administer taxes at low tax rates. The first choice in the power distribution hierarchy should be given to government institutions for (bc). Especially the newbies in the market should never be given the power of authenticity for (bc). So, excessive power given to officials and a lack of checks and balances in a nascent organization will collapse into intimidation and corruption. Indian pension reforms were the best example taken by the author to explain this. The Indian pension reform challenge has three components: mandated pensions for commercial enterprises, mandatory pensions for civil workers, and the enormous unorganized sector where the maximum corruption happens. Changes in reforms and systems were very much needed. In the author's words, "The credibility of the reform would be heightened with the 'eat your own dog food' character of the reform starting with civil servants." From "In Service of the Republic," (Published book by Vijay Kelkar, Ajay Shah, 2019). Copyright 2019 by Global Penguin Random House.

Managing the political economy is the most difficult challenge that arises whenever there is a change.

Successful reform requires dealing with the allocation of profits and losses and the formation and maintenance of winning coalitions with each political agenda that changes every five years. We should consider the most vulnerable institutions or groups and push the economy's costs into the future. The author's successful example was "India's petroleum sector liberalization." The measures began by providing ONGC with the world price for crude oil to build equity with exploration and drilling incentives based on the global price. This was a straightforward preliminary step that significantly impacted the Indian population.

In order to carry out their duties efficiently, a policymaker must first carry out various tasks. They must then follow a set of procedures that are designed to ensure that the process is completed in a way that is most beneficial to them. In India, we often get carried away by the simple steps of the process and end up doing the easy thing first.

Data compilation is very important before the start of any process. It is because, without this, the data will not be able to provide the necessary insight to the policymakers. The capacity building of the country and the state is also very important when the policymakers do it. They need to think about what they want their state's future to look like. They should try and make sure that these two goals align so

that they can unlock all the potential of their state, which includes other things, such as strengthening national resilience to disasters and improving economic policies to increase economic growth. We could understand that anything having a high level of stake and secrecy always brings issues at early stages, so it is vital to make it low translation intensity.

Policy failure of a state or a county is a response to failure by an agency; the right response should be a reduction in its coercive power. Capacity building can be done through reforms that reduce the amount of coercion exerted on others' behaviors, and it can happen when people have more control over their behaviors. Accountability for their work in government institutions should be brought forward, encouraging them to reflect on and learn from their mistakes with less fear of punishment. We could conclude this note with the author's point of view, "The right response to failure by an agency should be a reduction in its coercive power." From "In Service of the Republic," (Published book by Vijay Kelkar, Ajay Shah, 2019). Copyright 2019 by Global Penguin Random House.

Bibliography Vijay Kelkar (2019). Ajay Shah (2019). In Service of the Republic. https://www.amazon.in/Service-Republic-Science-Economic-Policy/dp/0670093327