Political Diary
New Delhi, 27 December 2022
Administering Change
PERFORM OR PERISH
By Poonam I Kaushish
A Government of India car drives
into Delhi’s Lodi garden at 7.30am, ‘saab’
instructs his driver to stay ‘right here’. So what if the slot is meant for
self-driven cars. Besides, why can’t saab
who has come to exercise, disembark on the road and walk a few steps, specially
as he lives less than a km in a Lutyens bungalow? Bluntly, saab is the law and cares tuppence. Welcome, the DNA of India’s babudom!
However last week served as a
wake-up call for our civil servants
notorious for arriving late, taking long lunches or spending their day on the
golf course when Railway and Telecom Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw forced
retirement of 10 senior telecom officials, some with doubtful integrity.
In September too,
he had in a high-visibility action caught a senior BSNL official napping at a meeting after
the Cabinet cleared a Rs1.64 lakh crore package for the public sector
enterprise, was given voluntary retirement. Similar disciplinary action was taken against 40
Railways officers.
Vaishnaw is not the only one. Since
2014 the Government has retired around 400 officers for lack of integrity or non-performance.
Most were Group A and Group B officers in line with Prime Minister Modi’s ‘perform or perish,’ mantra to make the work-shy
lethargic bureaucracy accountable.
That NaMo meant
business became apparent when 381 babus,
including 24 from IAS, two IPS and 99 Group B were prematurely compulsorily retired with cut in remuneration for non-performance and
being involved in illegal activities by the Personnel Ministry in July 2017. Pension
cut was imposed on 37 Group A officers including 5 IAS to underscore probity and performance as twin pillars of good
governance.
Besides, 199 Group A officers, including 8
IAS were penalised on remuneration. Strict action was also initiated against
officers on foreign postings who were continuing on assignments beyond their
approved tenures. Two years later 16 IAS officers, two IPS, 7 IFS were dismissed on corruption
charges.
However, such
episodic disciplinary action will not solve a systemic problem as it is a drop in the ocean of nearly
90,000 Group A officers
including 2,953 IAS, IPS, IFS and 2.9 lakh Group B employees officials. In fact, a recent survey by Hong Kong-based
Political and Economic Risk Consultancy rates India’s bureaucracy as worst
among Asian countries. A 9.21 rating out of 10, worse than Vietnam
(8.54), Indonesia (8.37), Philippines (7.57) and China (7.11)
It is open secret many mid-career
and senior officers have integrity and/or performance deficits and Government
needs to find ways to identify and offload them alongside recruiting
meritorious replacements. The guaranteed promotion system irrespective of
performance, too many departments performing no significant functions and the
corrupt nexuses with netas over a
long career and moneyed interests, all combine to ruin many officers.
Undeniably, the bureaucracy is a
powerful lobby. An obscurantist force often rivaling politicians with its fair
share of crooks, criminals and cheats. A majority of who work on the dictum,
show me the face I will show you the rule. Which translates into grease my
palms else I will read you the riot act and how!
Add to this, States are notorious
for having a “committed bureaucracy” or being aligned to Parties, resulting in
a spate of transfers and hounding out following a political change. Every change of
guard leads to ad nauseum transfers
resulting in most officials taking no initiative.
Indeed, the
political identification of officials is becoming so marked that even bureaucrats
are able to predict who will occupy which top post, if ‘X’, ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ Party or
individual comes to power! Confessed a former Cabinet Secretary, “the problem is
endemic in States like UP, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, where Chief Ministers have
failed to draw a distinction between “political direction and political
interference.”
Chimed in another, “Bureaucrats were
to be checks in the system. The checks have turned into cheques while the
balance is out of the window! The civil service has become an elite self
perpetuating club which protects its perks, turf and corners all top jobs.
Adeptly they have created jobs like regulators and committees, cornered by them
alongside misusing their office to benefit a Party or cultivate certain
constituencies while in office.”
Worse, instead of
putting the right man in the right job, netas
invariably end up choosing a wrong man for the right job for the wrong reasons.
Brining matters to such a pass that caste, corruption, pliability and political
connections alone count when it comes to promotions. Thus, administration
become increasingly weak and arbitrary since there is no time to acquire even
minimum knowledge necessary for discharge of functions.
Clearly, mid-career appraisals to
weed out incompetent officers will have to go on concurrently with greater
public service recruitment. Sadly, lateral hiring hasn’t taken off with
recruits struggling for acceptance and direction. Only 4% of India’s workforce
comprise public servants compared to
22.5% in UK, 13.5% in US and 28% in China.
Part of the problem of ridding deadwood
is primarily India’s labour laws which are the most restrictive anywhere, making it
hard to sack staff for any reason other than criminal misconduct. Add to this
the wheels of justice hardly move. It took 24 years to sack a CPWD assistant executive engineer who went on leave in
1990 and never returned to his desk after his requests for additional leave
were denied.
Happily
some States led by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, have changed the law to make
it easier to hire and fire staff. A move welcomed by industry leaders but
opposed by labour unions. Others too must reform their
public employment policies as combined employment of States is much more than Central
Government and State bureaucracy’s interface with the aam aadmi is much larger.
The
Centre and States with their 444 Central PSUs and 1,136 State PSUs should also
pursue disinvestment more vigorously and use part of the proceeds to reform
administration. An efficient bureaucracy is key to economic acceleration.
Questionably, will babus have courage to correct themselves? Can competence and integrity, not allegiance become criteria for
selection?
The writing is on
the wall. It is time babudom shrugs
off inertia and restores professionalism based on absolute, not obsolete
principles. It must give serious thought to determining what action needs to be
taken collectively to remove administrative deficiencies, expose political
malfunctioning and restore the system One way is to internalize the zero
tolerance principle and the “sunset principle” as in US. Under this method,
justification for any Governmental activity is all time under scrutiny so that
no acts of misdemeanour take place.
Undoubtedly, if our
bureaucrats don’t change their values, a time will come when they will become
increasingly irrelevant. Look how the country is rapidly progressing despite
the bureaucracy. It may exist by the sheer force of Newton's First Law of
inertia but it will not be playing a role which would make it a meaningful part
of the governance. Will our bureaucrats rise to the occasion or
will they allow the steel frame to rot and rust as they revel in mediocrity
and debase themselves as an I Am Sorry (IAS) service? --- INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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