Bureaucratic maladies
Source: By Debakinandan Mandal: The Statesman
Indian bureaucracy has of late come under increasing criticism. It has been rated as the worst in Asia with a 9.21 rating out of 10 ~ ten being the lowest on a scale from 1 to 10 ~, according to a report advanced by the Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd, Hong Kong, and released in January 2012. India fared worse than Vietnam (8.54), Indonesia (8.37), Philippines (7.57), and China (7.11). Singapore turned out to be the best with a rating of 2.25.
The report makes it clear that India’s inefficient bureaucracy is largely responsible for most of the serious complaints of the corporate class. And these include poor infrastructure and corruption. Officials are willing to accept under-the-table payments and companies are tempted to pay to overcome bureaucratic inertia and gain government favours.
On 31 October last year, the Supreme Court, responding to a PIL filed by 83 retired bureaucrats led by the former Cabinet Secretary, TSR Subramanian, came down heavily on the bureaucrat-politician nexus. The Bench (coram: KS Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, JJ) directed the central and all state governments to grant bureaucrats fixed tenures and insulate transfers and postings from political interference. Officers must insist on written ~ rather than oral ~ orders.
The court asked Parliament to enact a Civil Services Act under Article 309 of the Constitution to provide for a Civil Services Board ‘which can guide and advise the political executive on transfer, postings, disciplinary action etc.’ The ruling is a mix of positives and negatives. Since bureaucracy-bashing is a favourite national pastime, the court order will hopefully improve governance and enable the bureaucracy to function better.
Certain uncomfortable questions are bound to crop up. Are we entering an era of ‘government by judiciary?’ Hasn’t the Supreme Court stepped into the domain of the executive? Is it the business of the court to decide on the mechanism of the functioning of the government? Does it not strike at the basic feature of the Constitution ~ separation of powers? The only plausible explanation is that the weakest political executive under UPA-II has ceded its turf to the judiciary. Were the petitioners, all retired bureaucrats, true to their office and authority, when in service? Had Cabinet Secretaries and Chief Secretaries been strictly neutral, there would have been no controversies as faced by Ashok Khemka and Durga Shakti Nagpal. Indeed, politicians are calling the shots because senior bureaucrats have become wimpish. They tend to kowtow to their political masters.
Though our bureaucracy has its quota of the unscrupulous, a simple counter-question can be posed. Is their number disproportionate compared to those in other professions? The corporate sector, for instance, receives kickbacks during large-scale procurement. It even bribes the government and a section of the media ~ from paid news to fixing deals.
In order to revamp the system, it is necessary to accord recognition to the services of the upright and the apolitical. Who can forget Dr RK Raghavan of the IPS who at considerable personal risk, had protected the slain body of Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur in May 1991. KM Abraham of the IAS had once confronted Reliance, Sahara Parivar and the Bank of Rajasthan only to uphold the law and maintain the independence of an impartial regulator. Arindrajit Choudhury, IAS (West Bengal cadre), did what he deemed right in the overall interest of rural development. He had led his team of officers from Writers’ Buildings to the block level in the early Eighties to effect the sharing of powers between the rural bureaucracy and elected panchayats.
Would N Chandra been able to make TCS India’s largest IT company had he reported to a Pappu Yadav and not to S Ramadorai? Nandan Nilekani would have failed to achieve what he has for Infosys had he worked under the likes of Suresh Kalmadi. Let any corporate CEO in India report to a Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav, or Jayalalitha, or Mamata Banerjee rather than Ratan Tata or Narayana Murthi and still turn out to be successful. Many civil servants do extraordinary work in equally extraordinary circumstances ~ during floods, drought, elections, in confronting extremists, and of course, maintaining law and order and containing fissiparous tendencies.
In a representative democracy, to quote Prof. Harold Laski, the cabinet or the political executive is ‘amateur’ and ‘temporary’, while the civil service is ‘permanent’, consisting of ‘experts and professionals’. UPA-II has turned out to be the weakest dispensation since Independence. India direly needs an unfettered and responsive bureaucracy. The problems afflicting the bureaucracy need to be identified and addressed suitably. This will call for periodic review of performance.
Second, greater weightage is now given to subjective rather than objective factors in performance appraisal. The current system assigns 60 per cent weightage to personal attributes and functional competence (a subjective assessment) and just 40 per cent to work output (an objective assessment). A sizable segment of officers are rated ‘outstanding’ without having to face the appraiser. It would be a good idea to gather inputs from all concerned ~ superiors, subordinates and clients. This system of evaluation is followed by the World Bank and the government in the UK.
Third, according to Naresh Chandra, former Cabinet Secretary, Indian bureaucracy is a classic case of ‘homeostasis’ ~ junior and middle-level bureaucrats always look for a precedent in decision-making. They fear that bold action could lead to harassment. They want seniors to take the lead. “The concept of flexibility and innovation should first come at the level of senior bureaucrats who are leading the ministries and only then will it percolate down the system.’
It has been observed that while the government fares reasonably well on the policy front, implementation and delivery are below par because of the absence of team work. Lack of interdepartmental coordination hinders timely execution of projects. A lesson can be drawn from corporate governance instead of considering the problem from the narrow perspective of each department.
After the 2G spectrum scam and coal-block allocation scandal, the bureaucracy is scared of such entities as the CAG, CVC, CBI and the judiciary. “Level-jumping”, which facilitates quick disposal of files, is never encouraged. The example set by E Sridharan should inspire the bureaucracy. He had deviated from procedures and never bothered about CAG reports which deal with violation of rules.. This explains why Delhi got a world-class Metro on time and within the stipulated budget.
The technocrat-bureaucrat controversy and inter-service rivalry have led to divisiveness. Politicians take full advantage of the situation and adopt a policy of divide and rule to pursue their objectives. The evolution of a consultative mechanism headed by the DM in the district, the Chief Secretary in the state headquarters, and the Cabinet Secretary at the Centre will take care of the respective roles of the technocrat as the provider of professional inputs and the bureaucrat as the chief coordinator of governance. The protectors should not be poachers. The profile of a civil servant as penned by P Woodruff is relevant even today ~ “Who gets through his files quickly and wastes no time on looking up the rules, who writes short, decisive judgments because he is clear in his own mind where the right lies and does not seek to justify himself and who expects his subordinates to do their own work and trusts them unless he has reason not to.’
The erosion of values is responsible for the maladies of the bureaucracy. The joint family of the bureaucracy needs to be better organised both at the Centre and in the states.
Indian bureaucracy has of late come under increasing criticism. It has been rated as the worst in Asia with a 9.21 rating out of 10 ~ ten being the lowest on a scale from 1 to 10 ~, according to a report advanced by the Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd, Hong Kong, and released in January 2012. India fared worse than Vietnam (8.54), Indonesia (8.37), Philippines (7.57), and China (7.11). Singapore turned out to be the best with a rating of 2.25.
The report makes it clear that India’s inefficient bureaucracy is largely responsible for most of the serious complaints of the corporate class. And these include poor infrastructure and corruption. Officials are willing to accept under-the-table payments and companies are tempted to pay to overcome bureaucratic inertia and gain government favours.
On 31 October last year, the Supreme Court, responding to a PIL filed by 83 retired bureaucrats led by the former Cabinet Secretary, TSR Subramanian, came down heavily on the bureaucrat-politician nexus. The Bench (coram: KS Radhakrishnan and Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, JJ) directed the central and all state governments to grant bureaucrats fixed tenures and insulate transfers and postings from political interference. Officers must insist on written ~ rather than oral ~ orders.
The court asked Parliament to enact a Civil Services Act under Article 309 of the Constitution to provide for a Civil Services Board ‘which can guide and advise the political executive on transfer, postings, disciplinary action etc.’ The ruling is a mix of positives and negatives. Since bureaucracy-bashing is a favourite national pastime, the court order will hopefully improve governance and enable the bureaucracy to function better.
Certain uncomfortable questions are bound to crop up. Are we entering an era of ‘government by judiciary?’ Hasn’t the Supreme Court stepped into the domain of the executive? Is it the business of the court to decide on the mechanism of the functioning of the government? Does it not strike at the basic feature of the Constitution ~ separation of powers? The only plausible explanation is that the weakest political executive under UPA-II has ceded its turf to the judiciary. Were the petitioners, all retired bureaucrats, true to their office and authority, when in service? Had Cabinet Secretaries and Chief Secretaries been strictly neutral, there would have been no controversies as faced by Ashok Khemka and Durga Shakti Nagpal. Indeed, politicians are calling the shots because senior bureaucrats have become wimpish. They tend to kowtow to their political masters.
Though our bureaucracy has its quota of the unscrupulous, a simple counter-question can be posed. Is their number disproportionate compared to those in other professions? The corporate sector, for instance, receives kickbacks during large-scale procurement. It even bribes the government and a section of the media ~ from paid news to fixing deals.
In order to revamp the system, it is necessary to accord recognition to the services of the upright and the apolitical. Who can forget Dr RK Raghavan of the IPS who at considerable personal risk, had protected the slain body of Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur in May 1991. KM Abraham of the IAS had once confronted Reliance, Sahara Parivar and the Bank of Rajasthan only to uphold the law and maintain the independence of an impartial regulator. Arindrajit Choudhury, IAS (West Bengal cadre), did what he deemed right in the overall interest of rural development. He had led his team of officers from Writers’ Buildings to the block level in the early Eighties to effect the sharing of powers between the rural bureaucracy and elected panchayats.
Would N Chandra been able to make TCS India’s largest IT company had he reported to a Pappu Yadav and not to S Ramadorai? Nandan Nilekani would have failed to achieve what he has for Infosys had he worked under the likes of Suresh Kalmadi. Let any corporate CEO in India report to a Mayawati or Akhilesh Yadav, or Jayalalitha, or Mamata Banerjee rather than Ratan Tata or Narayana Murthi and still turn out to be successful. Many civil servants do extraordinary work in equally extraordinary circumstances ~ during floods, drought, elections, in confronting extremists, and of course, maintaining law and order and containing fissiparous tendencies.
In a representative democracy, to quote Prof. Harold Laski, the cabinet or the political executive is ‘amateur’ and ‘temporary’, while the civil service is ‘permanent’, consisting of ‘experts and professionals’. UPA-II has turned out to be the weakest dispensation since Independence. India direly needs an unfettered and responsive bureaucracy. The problems afflicting the bureaucracy need to be identified and addressed suitably. This will call for periodic review of performance.
Second, greater weightage is now given to subjective rather than objective factors in performance appraisal. The current system assigns 60 per cent weightage to personal attributes and functional competence (a subjective assessment) and just 40 per cent to work output (an objective assessment). A sizable segment of officers are rated ‘outstanding’ without having to face the appraiser. It would be a good idea to gather inputs from all concerned ~ superiors, subordinates and clients. This system of evaluation is followed by the World Bank and the government in the UK.
Third, according to Naresh Chandra, former Cabinet Secretary, Indian bureaucracy is a classic case of ‘homeostasis’ ~ junior and middle-level bureaucrats always look for a precedent in decision-making. They fear that bold action could lead to harassment. They want seniors to take the lead. “The concept of flexibility and innovation should first come at the level of senior bureaucrats who are leading the ministries and only then will it percolate down the system.’
It has been observed that while the government fares reasonably well on the policy front, implementation and delivery are below par because of the absence of team work. Lack of interdepartmental coordination hinders timely execution of projects. A lesson can be drawn from corporate governance instead of considering the problem from the narrow perspective of each department.
After the 2G spectrum scam and coal-block allocation scandal, the bureaucracy is scared of such entities as the CAG, CVC, CBI and the judiciary. “Level-jumping”, which facilitates quick disposal of files, is never encouraged. The example set by E Sridharan should inspire the bureaucracy. He had deviated from procedures and never bothered about CAG reports which deal with violation of rules.. This explains why Delhi got a world-class Metro on time and within the stipulated budget.
The technocrat-bureaucrat controversy and inter-service rivalry have led to divisiveness. Politicians take full advantage of the situation and adopt a policy of divide and rule to pursue their objectives. The evolution of a consultative mechanism headed by the DM in the district, the Chief Secretary in the state headquarters, and the Cabinet Secretary at the Centre will take care of the respective roles of the technocrat as the provider of professional inputs and the bureaucrat as the chief coordinator of governance. The protectors should not be poachers. The profile of a civil servant as penned by P Woodruff is relevant even today ~ “Who gets through his files quickly and wastes no time on looking up the rules, who writes short, decisive judgments because he is clear in his own mind where the right lies and does not seek to justify himself and who expects his subordinates to do their own work and trusts them unless he has reason not to.’
The erosion of values is responsible for the maladies of the bureaucracy. The joint family of the bureaucracy needs to be better organised both at the Centre and in the states.
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