Public Policy as a discipline in India: Still in infancy stage

Even after sixty two years of independence, a significant percentage of population is deprived of basic amenities which show the failure of policies adopted by successive government. Though a lot has been written on lost opportunities and government failures but nothing concrete has been done to correct those mistakes. I was trying to understand why public policies in the country have failed consistently. I searched for the relevant material on internet but barring one paper couldn’t find anything useful. I searched for the courses in public policy, found a few but the course contents were nowhere near to courses offered in developed countries. I couldn't understand that why in country like India with poor social and physical infrastructure, and inefficiencies in delivery of basic public services, Public policy as discipline still in infancy stage. Though IIM A and B started a course in Public Policy but the intake is limited and it primarily focuses on officers from various government services. The works of so called “think tanks” or on policy research by some institutes are limited to studying the implementation of some government programmes in a district or at state level. There is serious shortage of people with understanding of public policy designing and implementation. All developed countries and many of the developing countries like China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore have institutions dedicated for researching public policy related issues and imparting knowledge in public policy domain. The output from these institutions is of high quality and helps the government in making right decisions. There is immediate need to develop world class institutions for imparting knowledge in public policy domain and studying the public policy challenges in the country. .