Comments
When stand-in finance minister Piyush Goyal read out the Interim Budget 2019-2020, one sentence that stood out was his call to transform India into “a Minimum Government Maximum Governance nation with proactive and responsible bureaucracy”. This was when he laid out the Vision for India of 2030.
The statement has triggered discussion in the drawing rooms of mandarins.
Was he implying that bureaucrats have not been proactive and responsible till now? Does a more responsible bureaucracy mean a bureaucrat who toes the line of the government and does not ask questions? Hasn’t the proverbial red tape reduced with digitisation?
“People have been talking about a transparent and proactive bureaucracy for a while now. Most governments have been doing lip service to the idea,” says Ashok Jha, former Finance Secretary.
Goyal, however, clarifies that when he says proactive and responsible bureaucracy, what he means is building a team. “I genuinely believe in team effort. Even when I was speaking from the Opposition side I maintained that it is not about ownership — whether it is government or PSUs. It is about vision and leadership,” he says.
If not for team effort, 10 crore toilets could not have been constructed or every village would not have got access to electricity, asserts Goyal.
“There may be a few black sheep, but I never look at black sheep. I look at the good people and how I can use or engage with each of them and deliver results. All pillars of democracy have to work together. Chastising one section — even if it is bureaucracy — is not going to help. We all have to work,” he says.
Of course, digitisation will lead to greater transparency and less corruption. Aashish Chandorkar, a public policy commentator, explains, “Since the Finance Minister talked about a new Income Tax system where there is no human interface for any notices and their resolution, perhaps the 2030 view indicates a similar mindset change across the government.” He adds, “I don’t think the policy making intervention of the bureaucracy will be questioned or changed. This is more on how they interpret and enforce these decisions. And reduce discretion where possible.”
Chandorkar feels the interpretation of the word ‘bureaucracy’ may evolve. “The boundary condition obviously is to have a smaller government which then leads to small bureaucracy. But I think this statement was more about intervention, i.e. scope of what the bureaucracy does and how it does so and not the size of it,” he says.
More transparency
Vanaja N Sarna, the first chairperson of CBIC and now a member of the Central Information Commission, says, “I can speak from the revenue department side that in the last few years, due to digitisation, greater transparency in functioning has happened. In fact, when we introduced GST, we could have soft-pedalled and introduced technology later, but we went ahead. And due to this, cases of corruption are less as there is no human interface.”
With GST, she says, there is greater use of technology than ever before. And this has led to faster decision making as well.
“Those who till now were not delivering are also time-bound to perform as there is more accountability,” she says.
But then, there are always two sides to a story. Jha believes that “If governments want to have a more proactive bureaucracy then officers should be allowed to work without any fear — threat of transfers can have a demoralising effect. Officers are transferred at the whims and fancies of the powers that be despite a Supreme Court order mandating a minimum of two years’ posting.”
It’s common knowledge that transfers happen because some bureaucrats are perceived to be close to a particular party. In fact, the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, lay out norms for the code of conduct of an officer, including his/her political involvement. The rules state that it is essential that government servants maintain political neutrality.
Given what has been happening to august institutions like the CVC, CBI, CAG, and CIC, there is some serious introspection that bureaucracy (both the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service) as well as the government in power need to do. Until then, it will be tough to untangle the red tape.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.