The Hindu Business Line : Who is to push reforms?

There is no one pushing reform at the level of housekeeping. At the heart of this lies the appalling lack of accountability in the Government system.

In his speech at the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum, the Prime Minister urged the gathering to discuss how reforms in India could be accelerated. This suggests two things. First, that the Government is open to ideas and, two, that it is willing and able to do undertake rapid reform. Neither assumption is correct. There is no dearth of ideas and there is no limit to the obstacles to reform, mostly of the Government’s own making. The truth is that, c ontrary to popular belief, reform is blocked only partly by ideologues and vested interests. In the final reckoning, ideologues can be bought off — as has just been done by the decision to spend the proceeds of disinvestment on the social sector — and anti-reform vested interests can be neutralised by creating pro-reform vested interests.

So while it is all very well to state intentions and even make some grand changes in policy, who is to reform procedures or tackle the even more difficult problem of synchronising different laws enacted over a long period of time and which often have only an indirect bearing on the subject? The impact that old laws, which often work at cross-purposes with each other and are at odds with new ones, have on reform is severe, as any reformer will testify. Also, what can the Central government or reform-oriented institutions such as the RBI, SEBI, TRAI do about issues that require the co-operation of the State governments? What does the Government propose to do about subordinate legislation, which never happens but without which the changes in main laws remain unimplemented? How can ministries that deliberately refuse to notify a change or fail to frame the rules even after the change has been notified be persuaded to fall in line? How can a problem created by a single bureaucrat pushing pet hobby-horses that block reform, even if only inadvertently or with the best intentions, be solved?

Examples of reform being stymied by one or the other of these reasons can be trundled out in cartloads. But they would all serve only to make the same point — that there are very few in the Government pushing reform at the level of housekeeping. At the heart of the problem lies the appalling lack of accountability in the Government system. There is nothing easier, say seasoned civil servants and ministers of long standing, than to not implement a Cabinet decision. Some decisions have been taken six times over 50 years and not been implemented. So while the Prime Minister can ask for ideas, he has to first ensure that the Government over which he presides works so that these ideas can be implemented.

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