people's participation, decentralisation and delivery of public sector services in India

This paper describes the existing framework for delivering public services -- in health and education in India, highlighting inter-state differences in delivery systems. It discusses the constitutional division of responsibilities among the different levels of government, and the legislative, fiscal, and administrative division of responsibilities that has emerged in different states. The second part of the paper presents empirical evidence linking decentralization of decision making about specific public services to the effectiveness with which these services are delivered. It uses the 1994 - NCAER survey that coven some 1,700 villages and 33,000 households in f almost all states of India, and contains information on the decentralization in public delivery of services. The main empirical fbdbgs are that indicators ' of democratization and public participation, such as frequency of elections, presence of non-governmental organizations, parent-teacher associations and indicator variables for decentralized states generally have the expected positive effects, although these are not always statistically indistinguishable from zero.