The Hindu Business Line : Redundant ritual

I WAS frankly alarmed to come across a report that the Central Government has decided to set up yet another Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), headed by a person with the Cabinet Minister's rank, and comprising five members, including a high official as Secretary, "to prepare a blueprint for revamping the public administration system".

Intriguingly, it is supposed to be a Commission of Inquiry — a device, enjoying the powers of a Civil Court, normally meant to ferret out facts of an accident or criminal act. Ostensibly, the panel will be required to submit its recommendations within a year, but judged by the history of all Commissions, this one too will be engaged in its labours far beyond the deadline, demanding repeated extensions.

My earnest appeal to the Prime Minister is to call off this redundant ritual and save the precious energies of all those to be associated with it and avoid the gaping hole in finances that this is going to cause.

Every nook and corner of the vast administrative structure of the Government has already been repeatedly explored by a variety of bodies and experts, beginning with Paul Appleby, whom Jawaharlal Nehru himself had invited in the early 1950s.

The ARC under Morarji Desai in the 1960s produced several bulky volumes containing valuable pointers for action in a number of directions extending from the philosophical to the functional, in a most comprehensive manner.

More recently, the Fifth Pay Commission, along with its recommendations on the emoluments of Government employees, had suggested a number of very useful reforms to improve the functioning of public services, including the delivery system, but only the creamy part was implemented, throwing overboard the more solid stuff aimed at instilling accountability.

Why, in the middle of last year, the Committee on Civil Services Reforms, chaired by Mr P. C. Hota, had come up with a whole lot of concrete suggestions to tone up the system and pep up performance.

What is needed now is not another expensive Commission but a directive from the Prime Minister to submit to him a statement on the nature of all the recommendations made in the past and their present status, so that he could put his weight behind the efforts to hasten their implementation.

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