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Book Review: Maveli and Market Interventions By C. Balagopal

Any outsider interested in the bureaucracy of Kerala will be astonished by the versatility in their extra-professional interests. Some are academics while some are renowned writers or poets. C. Balagopal is one among such ex-bureaucrats who have made their mark as a writer. He is primarily a successful entrepreneur engaged in health technology. He already has two books in his kitty as a writer, the first – written about his initial days as a district officer in Manipur and the second as a recollection of his days as Kollam sub-collector.

His third book ‘Maveli and Market Interventions’ (MMI) published by DC Books narrates the first-hand account of the successful administration of Public Distribution System and market intervention strategies under the Left Front Government in 1980-81. He was engaged as the Secretary to Minister of Civil Supplies and as General Manager of SupplyCo, the largest state-run retail outlet in India.

It is a book hard to put down for anyone amazed at how Kerala as a small and dynamic state functions in several socio-economic realms. Presented in twelve short and crisp chapters with an epilogue, MMI takes you through various formal and informal negotiations held behind the screens of SupplyCo and Civil Supplies Department. The details of how the department dealt with the shortage in central allocation of foodgrains on one hand while bringing down market price by selling consumer products below market price is fascinating.

As a state fully dependent on central allocation and other states for its food supplies and with adverse relations between political forces in the state and centre, the achievement of any democratic reform would have involved intelligent investigation of the existing system and adept rope-walking; And the book is a testament to one such venture among many.

Two long enduring strategies of market intervention that were the crux of the Civil Supplies strategy are still alive, i.e. the organization of Onam festival trade fairs (Onachantha) where essential commodities related to the festival occasion were sold below market prices and the Maveli  (native word for Mahabali) fair price shops. It shows how a government department rose to the occasion under the political will and leadership of the then civil supplies minister and CPI leader E. Chandrasekharan Nair. Those who have travelled to Trivandrum would have noticed the large open stadium named after him in the middle of the city. The book is a fitting tribute to the late minister by his ex-secretary who had continued a lifelong relationship with him.

The readers will come across various hitherto unheard dramatic details of how the Maveli fair price shops were named and how the department dealt with threats by the traders’ lobby and headload workers. Narratives of how SupplyCo innovatively branded itself while entering liquor trade and its game-changing forays with computerization of logistics reveal how dynamic the entire venture approached its responsibilities. SupplyCo’s foray into the trade of cement and concomitant tussle with the Industries department and its unexpected role in a major water project for Coimbatore city is also worth reading. Details of how impressive hospitality for officials from financial institutions was carefully planned reveals a sense of sportsmanship and attention to minute detail.

The writing is absolutely gripping and styled as fiction. There is even a grand opening scene in one of the chapters that begin with a minister throwing a question to the visitor and narrating a story. One overhears crowded corridors, scraping chairs, rustling papers, giggling officers, and tensed bureaucrats all along the narrative as if they are part of the well-written drama.

Fundamentally, the book is a treat for any reader, a layman or an academic having a taste for anecdotal details of machinations of real politics and program implementation.  Though the writer nurtures no hope about the prospects of the SupplyCo under the political class, he acknowledges that rather than the bureaucrats, the political class has more stakes in risky initiatives due to their accountability to people. He argues for turning SupplyCo over to cooperative enterprises sans political intrusion and vouches for it to play an only interventional role through efficient pricing rather being subsidized by the government.

However, one is not clear about the nature of the supposed cooperatives especially when it’s been demonstrated more often as the political intervention of varying scale by left and democratic forces that has resulted in a successful cooperative sector. Also, one is wary of his prescription as one can’t help thinking whether he is missing the woods for trees as, despite its diminishing impact in a fast-growing economy, SupplyCo still plays a crucial role in provisioning essential consumer products to the poor and lower-middle-income sections of the society.

Featured image source: C. Balagopal/Twitter.

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