The Hindu Business Line : 91st Constitutional Amendment: Not quite adequate

ON July 7, the 91st Amendment to the Constitution, limiting the size of the Council of Ministers at the Centre and the States to no more than 15 per cent of the numbers in the Lok Sabha or the State Legislature, came into effect. Efficiency too does not seem the issue for even after the Amendment, there will be too many ministers at the Centre and in the big States to allow for good governance.

The logic underlying this Amendment is obvious. Cost is not the issue, for in relation to the overall cost of government, the expenditure on ministers is miniscule. The real problem is that with unlimited ministerships on offer, destabilising governments is made easier. Unfortunately, there seems to be little realisation that too many cooks spoil the broth. Who can deny that the governments have so far only served up a vile broth that has enfeebled the majority and kept the nation impoverished?

Even the National Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), which recommended the number of ministers "be fixed at the maximum of 10 per cent of the total strength of the popular House of the Legislature", does not seem to have thought this matter through. But even its recommendation was tweaked a bit to fix the ceiling at 15 per cent.

It would seem that the only reason why the Amendment was whisked through — it was hardly discussed in Parliament or in the media — was to afford political managers some protection against the clamour for berths in the government. Like good politicians they naturally expect to come out smelling roses at the same time. But there could be another unstated reason as well, which might have to do with the distribution of wealth. Too many people could reduce the individual's share in the spoils. That and making ministerships too commonplace only devalued the worth of the jobs.

Whatever the reasons for the ceiling, good governance or management principles seem to have little to do with it. There are 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha, which means there can be 81 ministers. With 787 MPs in all, almost one in nine MPs has a chance to become a minister. The States have in all 4,020 MLAs. This means some 600 ministerial berths for 4,487 MLAs and MLCs. Uttar Pradesh has the largest Legislative Assembly with 403 MLAs while Sikkim at the other end of the spectrum has to do with just 32 MLAs or five ministers.

Clearly those who brought in the Amendment have not seen the government as a responsibility that has to be sensibly shared. No organisation that is meant to function can be designed on such a basis. Analogies are seldom entirely appropriate, but you will see what one has in mind when you consider the absurdity of making the number of functional responsibilities in a company a function of the number of workers on the payroll. Management structures and hierarchies are based on assignment of responsibilities based on a division of work according to the technical and managerial specialisation of tasks.

Thus, a company might have heads for the production, marketing, finance, HRD, legal and secretarial, and research functions. In small companies just one or two persons may perform all the functions, while in a large professionally managed corporation there will be separate or even more heads of functional areas. But one just cannot link this to the number of workers. The important thing is that management structures apportion tasks and responsibilities according to specialisation.

There is little specialisation in government. Few ministers are trained or even knowledgeable about the responsibilities they shoulder. To compound matters even the bureaucrats in the system are generalists with few having specialised skills. Thus, a person who is working on Animal Husbandry one day takes charge of Economic Affairs the next.

Obviously, the management of government is much more complex with an infinitely larger set of tasks than the biggest corporation, however, professionally managed. But to divide the management of the State into 39 functional responsibilities, as is the case now, is to exaggerate that magnitude and complexity. It is as if in an automobile company making and selling cars the person responsible for making gearboxes is at the same level as those looking after the paint shop or procuring accessories. As if this was not bad enough, all of them will also be at the same level as the head of production, marketing or finance. Yet, this is how the Cabinet is organised.

There is a Minister for Rural Development and a Minister for Panchayati Raj as there are Ministers for Irrigation and Fertilisers, sitting on the same table as the Minister for Agriculture. We know that all agriculture is rural and everything in the rural world revolves around agriculture and so the case for separating the two goes straight away. Besides agriculture is about water, fertiliser, food distribution, food-processing, and agro and rural industries. And who has heard of forests in the urban areas?

Thus, instead of having one person responsible for improving the lot of the farmers and rural folk, we have nine departments headed by nine ministers. They often work at cross-purposes. Even if the ministers are willing, it will be almost impossible to make the bureaucratic structures march to the same beat. And so if the rural sector continues to languish, no one is responsible.

This was not the case 50 years ago. In Jawaharlal Nehru's first Cabinet there was only one minister for Food and Agriculture. The only agriculture related function not with this minister was Irrigation. Gulzarilal Nanda held the portfolio of Planning, Irrigation and Power. But in those days additional power was intended primarily from hydel projects and it, thus, possibly made sense to have irrigation outside the Food and Agriculture Ministry.

Likewise, Transport and Railways were under one ministry while it has been broken up into five areas now. Some of them quite small. Take the Civil Aviation Ministry. Apart from Air India, Indian Airlines, the Airports Authority of India and the Director-General of Civil Aviation there is little to it. The first three are companies with full-time managers. Since the Ministry has little policy to make it busies itself micromanaging the companies. And what is the need for an Information and Broadcasting Ministry when that means little more than Akashvani and Doordarshan? Mercifully, there is little by way of purchases in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

By now it should be quite apparent that the 91st Amendment is not good enough as it just does not address the problem. The country needs a 92nd Amendment that will marginally change Article 74(1) of the Constitution to read "there will be a Council of Ministers consisting of the Ministers for Home Affairs, Defence, Foreign Relations, Agriculture... ." Article 75(1) that makes it incumbent for the President to appoint Ministers on the advice of the Prime Minister, remaining as it is then makes the choice of the ministers entirely his or hers.

While we are at it we might want to look at Article 75(5) afresh and consider the merit of eliminating the stipulation of getting elected to either Houses of Parliament or legislatures. This will encourage Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers to induct professionals and competent persons. The new Prime Minister in his first address to the nation said: "I am convinced that the government, at every level, is today not adequately equipped and attuned to meet this challenge and meet the aspirations of the people. To be able to do so we require the reform of governments and political institutions." The UPA Chairperson is putting together some sort of an extra- governmental, possibly even an extra-constitutional, think tank. Maybe the subject of a smaller and more functional government will merit its attention.

(The author is with the Centre for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi. He can be contacted at mguru@sify.com)