Economic
Highlights
New Delhi,
19 April 2007
Keep Pace with Growth
REFORM ADMINISTRATION FOR RESULTS
By Dr. Vinod Mehta
Economic reforms were initiated 15
years ago, but successive
governments are still struggling to start reforming the administration, which
has become anarchism by world standards.
The governments are not keeping pace with the high economic growth rate.
Worse, in many cases they appear to be coming in the way of economic reforms.
The bureaucracy is unable to shed its old mindset. There is no initiative to
introduce police reforms; the jail manual is as old as 1861; an officer is
promoted over his 20 seniors one fine day with no justification and so on. All this is leading to confusion, heart
burning and low morale within the bureaucracy. Those who want to do something
feel frustrated.
This imbalance in the reform
process is creating problems and the
Government is unable to implement its schemes.
Reforms in administration essentially mean transparency and putting an end to
inefficiency and red tapism in governance. The second administrative reforms
commission headed by Veerappa Moilly
is looking into all of it. However, implementation of its recommendations at
the earliest is was is required.
The APEC
economies (consisting of Australia
and Asian countries) are implementing wide-ranging regulatory and
administrative reforms, resulting in improved market access,
increased efficiency and reduced impediments to competition and innovation.
According to studies, the reforms have generated large reductions in compliance
and administrative costs, and in some cases have underpinned far-reaching
domestic reforms that have significantly improved efficiency across a range of sectors. So, if administrative reforms
can benefit the APEC economies’ economically, why not us?
The Prime Minister is quite aware
of the imbalance between economic and administrative reforms. Delivery
mechanisms are weak. Transfer of bureaucrats, often and without any reasons,
has affected their morale, forcing him to personally supervise administrative
reforms. One only hopes that he would be able to set things right.
It is common knowledge that
decisions are taken but seldom implemented. Difficult decisions are glossed over by referring these to fresh committees. There are too many layers of hierarchy, affecting
the smooth functioning of administration; files keep hopping from one desk to
another, back and forth, without any meaningful addition to the decision-making
process.
Office rules and procedures are
outdated and clearly hampering the functioning of various government offices. Discipline
amongst employees is very bad. Citizens
are simply fed up with the administration. The Right to Information and
creation of websites will not help unless
mindsets and official procedures are also changed.
Therefore, it is time to introduce
administrative reforms without further delay.
Already a number of committees have made recommendations, which need to
be implemented with all seriousness.
For instance, the report of the Fifth Pay Commission’s
far reaching recommendations regarding administrative reforms.
But instead of accepting the
report in toto, the Government only
accepted populist recommendations! So we have an absurd situation, where
recommendations on pay-scales is accepted, but suggestions on a freeze on fresh
appointments, downsizing of the bureaucracy, simplification of office
procedures etc. are ignored. This makes baloney of the whole report and some
bureaucrats are of the firm opinion that the report should have been accepted in
full.
In simple words, if
recommendations regarding administrative reforms were not acceptable to the
employees, those regarding pay-scales should not have been accepted. The latter
led to heavy expenditure on the non-Plan side and the financial condition of
some States which implemented the pay-scales is in bad shape.
Also, the bureaucratic structure
in the country is not officer-oriented and is rather heavy at the bottom. Once
their jobs are permanent, the employees rarely show any interest in their
work. There is growing public opinion
that work should be outsourced at the lower level on a contractual basis as
there is no need to have a permanent cadre at that level. Some even believe
that the higher posts too should be given out on contractual basis!
Another disturbing factor is that
over the years the bureaucratic structure has been highly politicized. Interference from political leaders in
bureaucrats’ postings has not only vitiated the work atmosphere, but has also
led to a growing indifference towards work amongst them. Fixed tenure of
postings for bureaucrats may be the answer to this anomaly, feel experts.
Then there is the question of
training and retraining of government employees from top to bottom. It is
common knowledge that people from different social backgrounds, enter the
services at various levels and one cannot expect similar kind of behaviour from
all. Senior officers with middle-class background appear to have some sophistication,
but live in their own cocoons, while those coming from the lower strata of
society are relatively crude while dealing with the public. Therefore, proper
training of employees becomes all the more important to achieve results.
In fact, there is an emerging
view that politicians too need training in administrative matters to enable
them to understand the problems of administration. A case in point is that of France -- all
the politicians are expected to clear a course on administrative matters before
they are entrusted to handle the Ministries.
Besides, opinion is growing that instead
of the "general administrator" there should be the "specialist
administrator", who knows what he/she is expected to do in their
area. Today, bureaucrats are made to
move, say, from the Department of Animal Husbandry to that of Education,
followed by Commerce and health etc. In the process,
the incumbent has no specialist knowledge in the area he is assigned.
As for the Government, it is equally
important that in the interest of better administration, it should not put its
finger in all the pies. It should ask itself whether it is really its concern.
If not, then the Government should not get involved. But if it is its concern,
then the next question to be asked is whether it should be done by the
government or by some other organization, say an NGO or an autonomous
body. This way the government can save
itself from undertaking irrelevant and unnecessary
work.
In sum, it is time to initiate
reforms in administration, which go in line with the economic reforms. And,
while the Administrative Reforms Commission
is looking into this question and the Sixth Pay Commission
into pay and productivity, the bottom
line is how soon can we implement the reforms.—INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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