Questions/Answers

State Government's commitment has resulted in establishing primary and upper primary schools within walking distance. To take this progress further, it is felt necessary to ensure that all students graduating from upper primary level (8th Standard) could continue in the high schools, which in many cases are not accessible on foot. The students, particularly from economically and socially disadvantaged background, many a times had to drop out from high Schools owing to the distance. The problem had critical bearing on the girls which often results in irregular attendance, drop out and early marriage. Government of West Bengal announced the flagship scheme titled "Sabooj Sathi" in 2015-16 for providing bi-cycles to all students of Class IX to XII in Government Schools with the primary objective to increase access to high schools. The scheme was also expected to increase retention in high schools, encourage students for higher studies, inculcate sense of confidence among the girl students and promote environment-friendly and healthy means of transportation which are aligned to four Sustainable Goals of agenda 2030- SDG3: Good Health & Well-being, SDG4: Quality Education, SDG5: Gender Equality and SDG13: Climate actions. Sabooj Sathi Online 3.0 (www.wbsaboojsathi.gov.in) is the e-Governance mechanism which ensures end-to-end ICT enabled management of entire processes involved in implementation. Hon’ble Chief Minister of the State flagged off the scheme on 29th October 2015. Around 8 million students received bi-cycles so far. The scheme is continuing to cover around 10 million students by 2020. Students are getting bi-cycles as soon as they are admitted in class IX. The scheme has had a huge societal impact by enhancing general mobility of the population and that of the girls in particular. Enrolment in high school witnessed an increase by 12% immediately and by 6% on an average in the subsequent years. Girl students are more than the boys among the students appearing in Board exams. These bi-cycles are also being used for various domestic and social purposes.

Driven by a moral commitment of holistic development, which adds primacy to provide all children equal opportunity of education, the Sabooj Sathi programme is the first of its kind in the country as well as in the region to bring all high school-going students into the fold of the programme. The scheme aims to cover the universal set of students who are on the threshold of high school education irrespective of caste, creed, religion and social & economic status.

State Government's commitment ensured free universal access to primary education by establishing primary schools within the vicinity of habitations but high schools are not always accessible on foot owing to distance. The scheme aims at increasing access to high school education by providing mobility support free of cost. All students who are on the threshold of high school education have been brought under the fold of the scheme to provide equal opportunity which is aligned to SDG-4 - Quality Education and the targets like free equitable quality primary and secondary education, equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education including university and eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education. In the post-implementation phase, it was observed that class IX enrolment has increased by 12% and witnessed average subsequent increase by another 6%. Among the students appearing in the board exam, girl students are more in no. The bi-cycles has increased general mobility of the rural population; particularly the girl students. Retention and attendance in schools have generally been increased. The bi-cycles are being used of several social and domestic purposes.

State Government of West Bengal has taken up the scheme for increasing access to high school education and decided to bring all the target group students under the fold of the scheme. The scheme has been continuing since 2015-16 and the State Government has provided resources like manpower, fund, IT infrastructure for implementation. Nearly 8 million boys and girls are now using these healthy means of transportation triggering promotion of green vehicle. Impact study has indicated huge societal impact and overwhelming acceptability by all stakeholders. Being a flagship programme of State Government which is committed; this is highly sustainable.

After creating universal access to primary education, the whole country is now facing the challenge of universal access to secondary and higher secondary education which is critical to enhance Country’s competitiveness in the rapidly globalizing world. While 95% children of school going age are attending primary school; nearly half of them complete secondary and higher secondary level. Public funding is limited since other major issues are to be addressed simultaneously for rapid economic growth. It is hence impossible to create additional infrastructure for secondary and higher secondary education (8828 schools at present) in desired pace to provide access to all aspirants (around 4 million) in the State of West Bengal. The government’s decision to provide each of the high school students with a bicycle was a result of clear headed thinking on the issue of meeting the challenge of inaccessibility. Secondly, owing to the prevailing geo-social divisions, opportunities are also distributed very unevenly. The poor and disadvantaged multitude, most of whom live in the hinterlands has very limited opportunity of achieving competitive educational quality. In other words they are pitched in an uneven competition with the traditionally privileged, who have all the facilities of good schooling, good supplementary tutorials, libraries, and various sources of information. The bicycle at the disposal has been exerting a neutralizing effect on this unevenness by allowing the disadvantaged students relatively easy access to the facilities required for the competition.

While primary and upper primary schools are within comfortable walking distance, High schools are not always in the vicinity. Varying road conditions, change of weather add to the worry. The students, particularly from economically and socially disadvantaged background, many a times had to drop out from high Schools owing to the distance. The issue of accessibility has critical bearing on the girls who are often seen dropping out. The scheme aims at increasing access by bringing the entire target group students, both boys and girls under its fold. Impact study carried out by Pratichi (India) Limited indicates steady growth in enrolment, particularly among the girl students who are also more in no. than the boys in appearing board exams.

All students studying in class IX to XII in Govt. schools were brought under the purview of the initiative. Since 2015-16, around 8 million students were provided bi-cycles as mobility support. Students are now getting bi-cycles as soon as they are admitted in class IX. The scheme is continuing to cover around 10 million students by 2020. Impact study indicates 12% increase in enrolment followed by another 6% on an average in the subsequent years of implementation. Girl students appearing in Board exams are more in no. The scheme has increased general mobility of the rural population, particularly the Girl students. The bi-cycles are being used for various social and domestic purposes also, as the study indicates. Reponses taken from various stakeholders indicates better retention, regular attendance in school particularly for the girls, increase in effective study time, reduced expenditure in communication which in turn being used for buying food or books.

Implementation of this scheme demanded participation of officials and functionaries from various Government Departments. Synergy was established through sensitization, capacity building, defining roles and responsibilities and clear communication. To minimize operational cost, only existing Government infrastructure and Human resources were utilized. Dedicated administrative framework was designed, processes standardized and e-Governance mechanism was developed. • Backward Classes Welfare Department was designated as Nodal Department & WB SC,ST & OBC Development & Finance Corporation as the Implementing Agency. • State Government Constituted a Steering Committee headed by Principal Secretary to oversee the operations. • State Project Management Unit was set up. • Category and specifications of bi-cycles (34) as per Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) in consultation with “R & D Centre for testing of bi-cycles”, a joint initiative of Govt. of Punjab and UNDP. Distinct colour code for the bi-cycles, affixing Taggant label with code for District, year of manufacture was prescribed for security and tracking purposes. • Procurement was made through transparent electronic tendering process, evaluation through two-bid systems, a) Technical b) Financial. • Existing pool of Government officials at Block, Municipality and District level were aligned. Teachers, Inspector of Schools were sensitized. BDOs and SDOs identified 2,500 large Government infrastructures for taking delivery and assembling. Schools were tagged with these points for sending fitted bi-cycles conveniently. Work was carried out through an SOP communicated via e-mail and Video Conferencing. • Sabooj Sathi Online, the comprehensive e-Governance platform of the scheme provided a single unified virtual workspace for all stakeholders which provided end to end ICT enabled solution of entire process starting from recording particulars of eligible students of 12,235 schools, validation of particulars of 8 million students, logistics, uploading records of distribution by 12,235 schools and monitoring at decentralised levels.

The magnitude and the scale of this bi-cycle distribution programme were unprecedented in the country. Stiff timeline mandated by the State Government and ensuring efficiency, efficacy and transparency at all stages of delivery of this public utility service made the endeavour more challenging. There was no falling back as this kind of replicable model was totally non-existent in the country. Major challenges were procurement in huge quantities, creating database of eligible students, management of massive supply chain, planning for bi-cycle assembling, effective project management, aligning resources.

Government went against the popular global current of selective (popularly called “targeted”) facilitation, and decided to make the programme universal, was related to two things: (a) the intrinsic priority of non-discrimination in education, and (b) experiences of public programme delivery, both at home and away. It has been seen that programmes for select, “needy”, group of population, have often met with limited success, if not failed entirely. Robust e-Governance mechanism for implementation ensured accuracy; time bound delivery, transparency, reduced project management cost and effective implementation which resulted in huge societal impact, particularly in rural areas of the State.

No reference was drawn from any other initiatives in the country or Region; this is altogether innovated from a pilot in the remotest part of the State with selected target group.

This initiative is being replicated in some other States within the Country like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujrat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan with selected target groups.

In the e-governance mechanism all national master directories were used. The system was developed using open source technology. Cloud based server hosting environment ensures resources availability dynamically as per user requirement. The stakeholder’s logins were password protected and latest encryption algorithm has been used for password authentication with an additional security of “dynamic salt”. The user sessions are well secured and protected from any external session hacking and forgery. Both the Union and State Governments in the Country are implementing various schemes of individual benefits in different sectors. In all such schemes direct benefit transfer is impressed upon so that the target group can derive maximum benefit out of the schemes. In all such cases this could be a replicable model since it ensures accuracy; transparency, cost minimization which are essential components of good governance.

a. Human Resources Services of existing pool of Government officials at different levels were utilized. No additional staff recruited or hired. State Project Management Unit (SPMU) : 3 District level: 20 Nodal officers @ 1 per District Sub-Division level : 67 Designated officials @ 1 per Sub-Divdivision Block level: 332 @ 1 per Block School Teachers: 12,000 @1 per School School Inspectors: 750 @ 1 per circle b. Budgetary allocation: Rs. 2620.00 Cr. (INR 26.20 bn) c. IT Resources: Existing IT infrastructure

The e-Gov mechanism was developed by National Informatics Centre, the IT major in the Government sector and closely associated with the State Governments. IT backbone of the Govt. was used and the ICT platform was managed through various teams of NIC. The software development team, Cloud team, Operation Support team worked in tandem to provide seamless services. It has used the existing Cloud Platform in “Platform as a Service” mode. The e Procurement platform used for e Tendering. Mail & SMS Gateways of NIC were used to provide various eServices & m Services. The entire operation was carried out using existing Govt. resources in terms of manpower, machine and infrastructure. It is pertinent to mention that overall operational cost was even below 0.5% of the Project cost. The e-Gov mechanism is highly sustainable having dependency only on Government resources which is always available wherever and whenever required.

Yes

Pratichi (India) Trust, an organisation founded by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen was assigned to evaluate the scheme. They visited District, blocks, schools, and villages, and interacted with students, their parents, school authorities and citizens at large along with the grassroots level implementers. They had consultations with Project Management Unit (PMU) and Government officials of various line Departments associated with the implementation of the project. They have also examined the Saboojsathi database and verified with ground realities.

The main indicators used for the evaluation were: (a) Degree of realization of the benefits (whether and to which extent the bicycles reached the designated beneficiaries), (b) the degree of smoothness of implementation (easiness of the delivery mechanism), (c) the process of implementation, (d) level of coordination between various departments and other agencies involved in the implementation, (e) level of transparency (scope of public scrutiny), and (f) sustainability of the programme. Tools used were, personal interview with students, parents, teachers, and officials; group discussion with (i) students, (ii) villagers; and analysis of secondary data.

The program is based on the principles of equity – creating equal opportunities for all students. Difficulty in accessing the schools used to force many students, particularly from poor and disadvantaged background, and girls, to drop out at the threshold of high school education. The programme has, to a great extent, been able to meet the challenge of inaccessibility. The higher success of the scheme seems to have drawn from the policy of universalization, which expanded the scope social watch dogging by creating scope for using the voices of the powerful minority of the society, who are not-so-needy but can influence public programmes and social dynamics. The delivery was made robust by invoking a technologically forward-looking mechanism. The whole process of identification of suppliers to the delivery of bicycles to the students has been made on line, which ensures transparency of the scheme. The scheme has had a huge societal impact by enhancing the general mobility of the population and of the girls in particular. The bicycles distributed are also used for several other purposes than just going to school.

Backward Classes Welfare Department was assigned the task of implementation and designated as Nodal Department. West Bengal Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes Development & Finance Corporation, under the administrative control of the Department was declared implementing Agency. State Government Constituted a Steering Committee with senior officials drawn from Departments looking after the affairs of different communities which constitute the target group student population. A small Project Management Unit was set up at the Corporation. District Nodal Officers were appointed. It was planned to utilize services of existing pool of Government Officials and Staffs of various Departments at different levels. No operation was outsourced or paid for. Though large no. of such human resources was deployed they provided service from their own workplace which was already equipped with sufficient ICT based resources. Communication from respective Departmental heads ensured synergy among District & Sub-District level officials. After initial sensitization, State Project Management Unit harnessed all the implementing bodies through ICT based communication network. Specific job roles were defined for officials and staff at different level of Administration. User manuals available through the portal ensured flawless operation by implementers at decentralized level. Help desk provided dedicated support to all stakeholders.

In the designing phase, group of senior level officials drawn from different Departments which are to be associated with the project implementation, drew up a general guideline in consideration with the time frame, scale of operations, resources requirement etc. Inventory of available resources like manpower, IT infrastructure, existing database of students’ registration were explored with relevant Departments like School Education, Minority Affairs, Public Works, Sunderban Affairs and Finance. National Informatics Centre (NIC), the IT major in the Government sector was associated for development of application software for management of the implementation processes. Agile Development method was adopted since the actual work had to be started immediately. Finally one ICT enabled end to end solution for entire work flow emerged which ensured accuracy, transparency and time bound implementation. After coverage of around 4.0 million students, evaluation was taken up through Pratichi (India) Trust, an organisation founded by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen and working in the field of education in the year 2017. First evaluation report indicated initiation of desired change and the State Government after witnessing overwhelming response decided to continue.

Success of the scheme is the culmination of factors like Synergy among State Government Departments, Collaboration, sharing of workload, defined job roles, clear communication and a well thought planning of entire framework. The Government’s decision to provide each of the high school students with a bicycle was a result of clear headed thinking on the issue of meeting the challenge of inaccessibility and why the Government went against the popular global current of selective (popularly called “targeted”) facilitation, and decided to make the programme universal, was related to two things: (a) the intrinsic priority of non-discrimination in education, and (b) experiences of public programme delivery, both at home and away. It has been seen that programmes for select, “needy”, group of population, have often met with limited success, if not failed entirely. The delivery was made robust by invoking a technologically forward-looking mechanism. The whole process of identification of suppliers to the delivery of bicycles to the students has been made on-line, which ensures transparency of the scheme. The State Government may think of linking students with various value-added services in education and other sectors. Mapping of each student’s career path and providing interactive value added services to meet their aspiration could be another aspect. The frame work may be used to deliver other public services since it is already linked with 8 millon families.