PATNA (India CSR): Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna, in collaboration with the Georgia State University organized a 2-day International Conference on Public Policy and Managemet from 17th June to 18th June. During the conference, both the institutions signed an MoU in the presence of Brajesh Mehrotra, Chief Secretary, GoB. This MoU will facilitate joint research projects, student exchange programs, etc.
In the first session of the second day, the presentations were made on various aspects of “Policy and Service Delivery Challenges in Poverty Alleviation, Education and Health in India and the World”. Discussing the electoral accountability and fiscal accountability in Peru, Prof. Charles Hankla, Georgia State University, USA stated that the scale of funding on public services by the elected representatives influences their electoral accountability that gets manifested by the voters in the form of recalls and reelection. While presenting the findings of the study on the access to public services in 153 slums of Mumbai, Prof. Anjali Thomas of Georgia Institute of Technology, USA underlined that if both bureaucratic assistance and political coordination work together, it maximizes the chances of better delivery of services like drinking water supply to the last mile citizens.
In his presentation, Prof. V. N. Alok of IIPA, New Delhi said that the adoption of the ‘top-down approach’ in creating the local bodies has hindered the growth of grass-root governance. In order to strengthen the PRIs and municipalities, he recommended for the direct allocation of funds to the local bodies from the Union Finance Commission as being done in case of the state governments. Dr. Sayan Banerjee, Texas Tech University, USA, in his presentation, discussed about how local gender quota improves the electability of higher tiers. Dr. Anamika Priyadarshini, Director – Knowledge Management, Research and Design, Heifer International India discussed about the policy interventions to address toxic masculinity among boys. She advocated for the early engagement of adolescent boys around gender issues and preventing distress migration besides livelihoods arrangements for young males locally as the effective remedial measures. This session was moderated by Dr. Pradeep Kumar Chaudhary, Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
The second session was devoted to the field learnings pertaining to the policies of climate change and sustainability industry and agriculture in Bihar. Dr. S. Senapati and Dr. D. Samanta, Assistant Professors of CIMP, Chandan Jha, Programme Lead, Council on Environment, Energy and Water, Dr. Indrajeet Kumar, IEG, New Delhi and Prameet Kumar Vineet, Assistant Professor, Patna University gave their presentations based on filed studies in different parts of Bihar. Utsav Kumar, ISS moderated this session.
It was followed by a panel discussion on “Entrepreneurship in Bihar: The merging Trend and Challenges”. Various young entrepreneurs based out of Bihar were the discussants.
In the valedictory session, besides summarizing the dialogues and deliberations held throughout the conference, Prof. Rana Singh, Director, CIMP, Prof. Charles Hankla, Prof. Anjali Thomas and Dr. Sayan Banerjee discussed the way forward in terms of strengthening the good governance and local development in Bihar and beyond.
