Editorial: The Steel Frame Has Warped

Indian bureaucracy has been rated as the worst in Asia. A report prepared by the Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd has given Indian babus a rating of 9.21 out of 10. The survey primarily had business executives as its respondents and the rating thus is essentially about how easy/ difficult bureaucracies in different Asian countries are when it comes to facilitating enterprise. The top ranks have been secured by Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, all developed economies. As for us, our bureaucracy fares worse than Vietnam (rated at 8.54), Indonesia (8.37), Philippines (7.57) and China (7.11). No one in this country thinks much of its bureaucracy [the race for UPSC is rarely fuelled by a zeal for public service], but to learn that our administrators are worse than those in Vietnam and Indonesia is depression-inducing. While there would have been no complaints from Indians if the administration was found intransigent towards business houses because of their concern for the lay people, truth is that our babus rank so low because of corruption, inertia and superiority complex. While this would not come as a surprise to anyone who has had to get “official” work done in government departments [even in Sikkim], this need not have been the case if the Steel Frame, as the bureaucracy here sees itself, had been more malleable to accommodate a people-first attitude instead of continuing with the mai-baap fixation carried over from the colonial/ subject days. The steel frame has warped, and the ugliness is now unveiled, part of a report from a prestigious organisation and bound to be quoted often in the future. What is worrying is that if the bureaucracy at the national level, despite the pressures of public scrutiny and media attention, is so poor, how would the administration here present itself in the face of a similar survey?
Returning to the larger question, year 2011 would not have begun with such disheartening revelations. The Administrative Reforms Commission of the Government of India back in the year 2008 had made some interesting, albeit obvious, recommendations, which, if adopted, would have been path-breaking in, well, reforming administration. Its draft report had suggested that bureaucrats be held responsible for service delivery. Yes, ironically, performance is rated on input-centric indices in our country. Bureaucrats, as also the schemes they oversee, are rated on the basis of money spent, man-hours devoted and manpower deployed. The ARC had recommended that assessment be based on quantifiable output targets. This is a good idea and a welcome relief from attitudes which focus only on “efforts” [which are all about claims] and ignore the all important “impact”, as in results. Schemes are evaluated and sustained [with release of subsequent funds] based on Utilization Certificates. Although Sikkim’s bureaucracy fares poorly even on this formality, had the ARC’s recommendation been adopted [along with its penal clauses on failure], development would have attained the right trajectory. The problem with the present approach to evaluation is that because it is “input centric” it makes no demands on the bureaucracy to remain true to its public service epithet. Should this recommendation [on the service delivery yardstick] be adopted, it could end up catalyzing the entire decentralization process. Interestingly, Sikkim’s own Administrative Reforms Commission, in its report submitted to the State Government in July 2010, had, among other things, reiterated [it had said that this was of “considerable importance”] the need to draft a Citizen’s Charter for departments which deal directly with the general public. One of the biggest hurdles holding up effective decentralization of power, despite devolution of substantial powers to the panchayat level, is that lay people still do not have an important enough say. While they can vote for change, that is about the only control they have on delivery of development. They cannot touch the bureaucrats. And the babus can continue to talk down to them, because when it comes evaluating their performance, it is based on data [on inputs] which they control along with the elected representatives [who become a part of the System when they get elected]. Should performances be instead evaluated on the returns accrued by the inputs made, the end-recipients, that is the people, have a majority say because it will be their assessment of the effectiveness of administration’s ability to deliver that will decide which officers stay and who is shown the door. Yes, the Govt of India’s ARC draft had recommended that civil servants who continually fail to “perform” are compulsorily retired.
Of course none of these recommendations were implemented. And now we have the report of the Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy reiterating what happens if the departments do not have enough public servants in the real sense of the term.