The Hindu Business Line : Civil service reform

This refers to the article “Time to crank up the administrative machine” (Business Line, July 3) on civil service reforms. It is an important issue and needs a fuller and wider debate.

What the civil service urgently needs today is to tone up its effectiveness in quick decision-making and its ability to meet the challenges of the economy of the new millennium.

An example that readily comes to mind is what used to be decided at the secretary’s level — and that was final — is now being referred to committees of secretaries, groups of ministers and even extended groups of ministers and, yet, there are protracted delays in decision-making.

There is a long catalogue of such woes affecting the nation’s rapid progress and damaging the country’s reputation as an attractive investment destination.

The steel-frame has vanished long ago and we are left with a hollow and weak one.

Even top officials are afraid to take decisions. It was expected that the much publicised economic administrative reforms commission would do a good job but these urgent issues seem to have been ignored.

S. Subramanyan e-mail

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