Connecting Rural India

Prepared for the 2014 IGC Growth Week Jacob N. Shapiro (Princeton) Oliver Vanden Eynde (PSE) September 24, 2014

Introduction

Connecting rural India • Several nation-wide, centrally-funded infrastructure programs

targeted at “unconnected” rural villages: • Electrification (RGGVY) • Road construction (PMGSY) • Telecom (USOF) • Rural Drinking Water (NWRDP) • Integrated Action Plan (IAP)

• Under previous government first four programs were bundled in the “Bharat Nirman” campaign, ~$10B/year

Academic and policy motivations • Infrastructure development is one of the most important areas of public investment and economic aid (cf. the World Bank) • India’s Nation-wide rural infrastructure programmes stand out:

• Scale (hundreds of thousands of villages targeted) • Reliance on pre-determined eligibility criteria • Implementation delegated to the State governments • Strong monitoring and availability of project data • Independence across programs enables analysis of

complementarities

Project summary • Construct a geocoded dataset of the rural infrastructure projects undertaken under the “Bharat Nirman” program

• Matched to the relevant geographical units in the Census of India • Collected from various sources, Central and State

• Use data to study two broad research questions:

1. What factors determine successful program completion? • Focus on implementation in LWE districts

2. What are the impacts of rural infrastructure provision on local socio-economic and political outcomes?

• Are there complementarities between schemes? • Do the scheme work differently in different political environments?

Preliminary Findings

• Evidence of particular implementation difficulties in LWE affected areas

• Patterns depend on the type of infrastructure

• Patterns are different for different metrics: • Cancellations • Completion time • Costs and overruns

Remainder of the talk Overview of included programs:

• Electrification (RGGVY) • Road construction (PMGSY) • Telecom (USOF) • Rural Drinking Water (NWRDP) • Flexible programmes: IAP, THAI, BRGF

Descriptive analysis of completion process in LWE districts

Next steps

Overview of Programs and Data Collection Efforts

Data collection efforts • Most programs provide implementation details online, but:

• Data can rarely be accessed in an integrated format • Details about the implementation process are lacking • Baseline data is often not available • There are many transcription errors • Crucial variables are often missing • Integrate locally-available data for certain states/programs

•So we visit relevant departments (in Delhi and the States):

• Collect information on complementary state-sponsored schemes • Improve understanding of the roll-out processes and differences

between states • Address data gaps/errors

Telecom (USOF) • Universal Service Obligation Fund:

• Started in 2007 • Secures telecom coverage for uncovered villages by offering

subsidies for tower construction to commercial providers • Eligibility based on population size

• Data collected or being sought • Location of 7,353 towers constructed under USOF phase I • Location of 11,049 towers proposed in 2007, using similar eligibility

rule (with a lower population threshold), but never constructed • Coverage status of villages in 2012 • Location and date/phase of towers that are not built under USOF:

• Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala

Mapping USOF Phase I

Mapping USOF Phase I and proposed Phase II

Electrification (RGGVY) • Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana:

• Launched in 2005 • Connecting un-electrified villages to the electrical grid (Xth Plan)

• States in the South were deemed to be fully electrified • Intensive electrification (XIth Plan)

• Taken up in all states • Providing connections to BPL households • But, no guarantee of power supply over new lines

• Data collected:

• Details of electrification projects in unelectrified villages (Xth Plan) • Complement MIS with information from implementing agencies

Mapping RGGVY Xth plan (Chhattisgarh)

Mapping RGGVY and USOF Phase 1 (Chhattisgarh)

Coordination Between Programs

16

Villages treated under USOF

Electrified in 2001 495

Electrified under RGGVY

5

Not Electrified

48

Total 548

• Lack of power is a severe implementation challenge for USOF • Diesel generators provided for the towers with subsidized fuel • Continuity of telecom service is not monitored • Diesel and electricity theft at the expense of 24h telecom coverage

Road Construction (PMGSY) • Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana:

• Launched in 2000 • Connecting villages/habitations satisfying certain population criteria

• 1000 by 2003 (500 in tribal, hill, and desert areas) • 500 by 2007 (250 in tribal, hill, and desert areas)

• Data collected so far:

• Details of 349,178 km of roads built between 2001 and 2013 • Details on State-sponsored programs that complement PMGSY (CMGSY):

• Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh

Mapping PMGSY (Chhattisgarh)

Note: completed roads, match rate 79%

Drinking Water (NRDWP)

• National Rural Drinking Water Programme: • Provides habitations with clean drinking water • Eligibility determined on the basis of a minimum level drinkable “litres per capita per day” (lpcd)

• Data collected:

• Details of more than 3 million drinking water projects • Details of 1.6 million habitations (including lpcd measurements)

Flexible infrastructure: IAP • IAP: Integrated Action Plan

• Small-scale infrastructure projects in districts suffering LWE • Controlled by district collector, role for SP and Forest Officer • Started in 2010-11 (in 60 districts), 30 Crore Rs per district/year

• Program differs from flagship schemes

• Data collected: • IAP: 23,535 projects at the block level • Village information for a subset

Preliminary Analysis: roll-out in the Red Corridor

Connecting the Red Corridor

Note: grey districts have at least one Maoist-related casualty between 2005 and 2010

USOF Summary Statistics

Level Mean Observations

Completed USOF Tower Village 0.01 566828

(0.10)

Cancelled Tower Tower 0.13 7211

(0.34)

Days to Completion Tower 775 6242

(182)

Distance from Proposed location

Tower 4.55 6494

(6.18)

USOF: Completion times

0.2

.4.6

.81

US

OF

Tow

er C

ompl

etio

n

0 50 100 150 200Topcoded Death Rate (per million)

bandwidth = .15

Probability of Completion by Level of Violence

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Day

s to

com

plet

ion

0 50 100 150 200Topcoded Death Rate (per million)

bandwidth = .15

Conditional Days to Completion by Level of Violence

USOF: Roll-out (All India) Completed

Tower (%) Cancelled Tower (%)

Days to Com-pletion (days)

Distance from Proposed (km)

Literacy Share -0.162 -7.55 76.65 -2.22*** (0.217) (5.02) (49.25) (0.82)

ST Share -0.193 13.5** 81.36*** 0.62 (0.123) (5.55) (27.75) (0.47)

SC Share -0.146 -2.75 -33.04 0.13 (0.101) (4.27) (27.08) (0.64)

Population Density -3.12*** 64.9*** 45.62 6.89 (0.444) (19.5) (267.5) (5.42)

Maoist Related Deaths -0.001 0.208*** -0.947** -0.0095** (0.002) (0.0558) (0.376) (0.0044)

Observations 566,828 7,211 6,242 6,494 R-squared 0.000 0.064 0.025 0.005

Robust standard errors (clustered at the district level) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

USOF: Roll-out (Chhattisgarh) Completed

Tower (%) Cancelled Tower (%)

Days to Com-pletion (days)

Distance from Proposed (km)

Literacy Share 2.09 -86.3** -66.70 2.87 (1.43) (32.7) (43.65) (3.52)

ST Share -1.36*** 39.7** -77.61** 1.32 (0.441) (14.0) (31.52) (1.83)

SC Share -1.79** 1.00 -91.52* 3.65 (0.660) (27.3) (45.89) (4.19)

Population Density 63.3 751.9 -1,717 90.4 (55.1) (659.5) (1,652) (107.4)

Maoist Related Deaths -0.001 0.0692 -0.00616 0.0092 (0.004) (0.128) (0.182) (0.0077)

Observations 19,406 557 331 497 R-squared 0.003 0.234 0.036 0.012

Robust standard errors (clustered at the district level) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

PMGSY (Chhattisgarh) Summary Statistics

Level Mean Observations

Completed PMGSY Road Village 0.16 19291

(0.37) Days to Completion Road 1390 3089

(649)

Cost per km (Lakh Rs) Road 7.94 3105

(6.93)

Overrun (%) Road 3.23 3105 (8.37)

PMGSY: Completion (Chhatt)

USOF Comparison for Chhattisgarh

PMGSY: Roll-out (Chhatt) Completed Road (%)

Days to Com-pletion (days)

Cost per Km (Lakh Rs)

Overrun rate (%)

Literacy Share -0.315 -869*** 4.50** 0.84 (6.95) (265) (1.65) (2.64)

ST Share -4.09 117 -1.13** 1.45** (3.15) (102) (0.51) (0.51)

SC Share -9.16*** -121 -1.16 -0.17 (2.53) (121) (1.09) (1.38)

Population Density -16.3 12,991 76.69 25.29 (41.4) (7,684) (76.40) (68.69)

Maoist Related Deaths -0.116*** 8.56*** -0.0030 0.0237* (0.0298) (2.44) (0.0161) (0.0125)

Observations 19,291 3,089 3,105 3,105 R-squared 0.009 0.095 0.016 0.005

Robust standard errors (clustered at the district level) in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

Conclusion • India’s flagship programmes offer opportunities for researchers to understand:

• Socio-economic impacts • Implementation Process

• Lack of coordination between projects • The challenges of reaching LWE areas:

• Evidence of implementation difficulties • Patterns depend on the type of infrastructure • Non-linearities in the relationship with observable violence

International Growth Centre London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street London WC2 2AE

www.theigc.org