The solution to the problem of corruption has to be more systemic than other governance issues. This can be done by:

According to an official estimate, the total expenditure on pay and allowances (excluding productivity linked bonus/ad-hoc bonus, honorarium, encashment of earned leave and travelling allowances) for Central Government Civilian Regular employees, including employees of the union territories, was Rs 33,977.79 crore in 1999-2000 compared to Rs 31,560.19 crore in 1998-99 — an increase of Rs 2,417.60 crore.

According to a Government of India report, the total number of Central Government (Civilian) Regular employees in position as on March 1, 2000 was 38.55 lakh compared to 39.07 lakh on March 31, 1999 — a decrease of 51,605 posts. Of the total strength of 38.55 lakh, the percentage share of the Railways is 41, Home Affairs 15.1, Defence (Civilian) 13.1, Communications 18.6 and other Ministries/Departments 12.3. Of the total 41.72 lakh sanctioned posts, 7.6 per cent were vacant on March 1, 2000.

The government must get closer to the public, eliminate wastage, and reduce red-tapism. Also, documents can be put online to provide accurate and timely information to the general public.

In fact, an appetite for change and absorbing new ideas for quality governance should be the government's motto. And for that, competition is the only way as it brings innovation. That is why privatisation is popular. The concept of quality in government is responsiveness, minimising or eliminating delays, efficiency, transparency, stability of tenure, minimising discretion, revamping the system of rewards and punishment by improving professionalism, capacity building and training, and above all right-sizing, monitoring complaints by creating an effective complaint-tracking system, fairness, accountability, regular feedback, eliminating corruption, recognising team effort and so on.

The bureaucracy is less eager to absorb new ideas. In a government it is impossible to fire those who do not perform. Compared to the French and Japanese bureaucracy, the Indian bureaucracy has failed to create wealth. Now, it is time that the bureaucracy rose to the occasion and contributed its share.

In the age of information technology, knowledge management is a must and needs a total quality approach. In an era of enormous competition where the consumer is highly discerning, quality helps to differentiate products, develop core competence and compete. So no country, no government and no company can remain untouched with the quality movement. In government, the flaw is in the system, not workers. Solving problems in government requires teamwork and breaking down departmental barriers. The fact of being consulted and enlisted rather than blamed or ignored - results in huge improvement in morale and productivity. So cutting layers is a must to make employees enthusiastic. But these elements are missing in the government. To make the quality movement successful, there is a crucial need for the top executives to get personally involved. But this hardly happens in the government.

There is no ownership. Also, political factors are more compelling than a quality programme. Under the traditional bureaucratic training programme, 90 per cent of an officer's time is spent doing what they spend doing 10 per cent of their time. Adopting a quality strategy is a matter of radical re-structuring aimed at liberating human ingenuity and the potential pleasure in the good work that lie at least partially dormant in every organisation. Quality has an effect on income. Whether quality costs money or saves money is an old confusion. In one sense quality means the feature of some product or service that makes people buy it.

So to produce features ordinarily one has to invest money, in that sense, higher quality costs more. But it is income generating. Quality also means freedom from trouble and failure, so it is cost oriented. If things fail internally, it costs the company and if they fail externally, it costs the customers. Finally, quality costs less, and creates and retains customers. And that is the hallmark of business.

Privatisation alone is not the solution for quality in government. Those who advocate it on ideological grounds — because they believe business is always superior to government — are selling the Indians a utopian vision. Merely shrinking the State's economic role by resorting to deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation is not necessarily the solution to addressing the problem.

No where is the issue of institutional reform as important as in the delivery of law and justice. All efforts at development can flounder in the absence of peace and law and order. Increasing insecurity can not only retard new investment but also lead to changes in existing activities. It must be recognised that the success of a market-based economy rests critically on the sanctity of contracts and the speed with which they can be enforced. This requires expeditious delivery of justice by the legal system and its enforcement by the State and quick decision making by bureaucracy.

The ultimate aim of the economic policy is to create millions of new jobs and wealth. For that quality will be a decisive factor. Empowerment of the marginal and the excluded people should be top priority. The bureaucracy should be to find a solution to a problem rather than create obstacles by quoting outdated rules and circulars. Creativity is the main source for finding a solution, and comes when there is an inner passion to solve the problem at hand. The quality problem can be diagnosed by making a distinction between the chronic and the sporadic. Sporadic events can be handled by control mechanism and quality control, while something chronic requires creativity, because the purpose is to get rid of the status quo. Dealing with the chronic problem requires structural change, which has to originate at the top. Finally quality governance is, perhaps, the single most important factor to ensure that the objectives of the Tenth Plan are achieved.

(The author is a member of the Indian Revenue Service. The views are personal.)

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