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The immediate case for a nudge

March 04, 2017 11:33 pm | Updated March 07, 2017 01:47 pm IST

Ensuring a clean environment requires inculcation of certain habits. And that needs encouragement

A nyone who’s ever been to Mumbai would have paid a visit to Juhu beach. People from all walks of life enjoy the rather popular spot. And why shouldn’t they? The view of the sea merging with the infinite horizon is spell-bounding while taking a stroll along the length of the shore.

And then, just when you are soaking in the sound of the waves and enjoying the light summer breeze, you suddenly tumble and find a discarded water bottle in your way. In a flash you come back to the reality and see heaps of garbage all around you. At that moment the beauty of everything else around you gets diluted.

Indeed, there is no dearth of such instances across India. You instantly curse the person who might be responsible, but before you do so, take a moment and think whether you are the real victim.

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An unclean environment is not only visually unpleasant but it also has significant health, financial and environmental costs. While the poor and the less fortunate may be constrained by the lack of adequate facilities and education to understand this harsh reality, it’s disheartening to see that there is fairly limited effort by even the urban educated class which is aware of the gravity of the situation. Such day-to-day instances often find short-lived mention in our tea time chats with peers. And more often than not, this ends up being yet another admirable problem that leaves you with unnerving questions.

Why are things as simple as using the dustbin for waste disposal such a challenge to implement? Why is there so much tolerance towards litterbugs? Why has the chalta hai attitude permeated so much within us? Till when will we continue this blame game of shifting responsibilities like a ping pong ball — citizen vs state?

A collaborative effort on the part of both individuals and the government is necessary towards ensuring a clean environment. The government’s role comes in with ensuring adequate provision of infrastructure such as dustbins as well as provisions for waste collection and management.

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Role of citizens

But what about the role of the citizens in keeping up with government initiatives such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan? The only mandatory contribution individuals make towards the initiative is the Swachh Bharat Cess levied on all taxable services. While the mission has started countrywide sanitation programmes and cleanliness drives, there is a long way to go insofar as the behavioural impact at the individual level is concerned.

So towards encouraging more responsible behaviour towards one’s surroundings, what can the governments do that it hasn’t already tried? Social influences can go a long way in establishing individual compliance with certain behaviour patterns, and nudges are one such popular route to induce such influences. Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein describe ‘nudges’ as interventions that help alter people’s behaviour by creating a choice architecture, without forbidding any of the options available.

They cite the Texas example. To address a growing problem of littering on highways, Texas designed a creative nudge by bringing in celebrities to feature in television advertisements with the slogan ‘Don’t mess with Texas’. This has connected with the masses and resulted in a significant reduction in visible roadside litter.

Individual responses to cleanliness vary across situations. For instance, on the premises of Delhi Metro, the same set of people who otherwise conveniently litter around are at their best civic behaviour. Also, the same people in a foreign land so diligently follow each and every rule! Is it just the vigilance? As individuals, do we have a switch-off/switch-on to modify our behaviour depending on the oversight? Is it the level of accountability and responsibility that drives these behavioural outcomes? Insights on behavioural nudges suggest that people behave differently if they are being monitored as opposed to when they are not. Moreover, a clean environment perpetuates cleaner habits, while a dirty one will not be a deterrent to the next ‘litterbug’. ‘We’ the people are the real agents that have the potential to bring a change in society through our collective efforts in the right direction. There ought to be a greater realisation of the need to focus on individual responses (via nudges) to supplement the efforts of the government. And on that note, it’s time we brace ourselves with the spirit of these words: Chalta hai, ab nahi chalega!

(The authors are researchers at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi. pjoshi@icrier.res.in ; vwattal@icrier.res.in )

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