Administering Change
By Poonam I Kaushish
A Government of India car drives into Delhi’s Lodi garden at 7.30am, ‘saab’ instructs his driver to stay ‘right here’. So what if the slot is meant for self-driven cars. Besides, why can’t saab who has come to exercise, disembark on the road and walk a few steps, specially as he lives less than a km in a Lutyens bungalow? Bluntly, saab is the law and cares tuppence. Welcome, the DNA of India’s babudom!
However last week served as a wake-up call for our civil servants notorious for arriving late, taking long lunches or spending their day on the golf course when Railway and Telecom Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw forced retirement of 10 senior telecom officials, some with doubtful integrity.
In September too, he had in a high-visibility action caught a senior BSNL official napping at a meeting after the Cabinet cleared a Rs1.64 lakh crore package for the public sector enterprise, was given voluntary retirement. Similar disciplinary action was taken against 40 Railways officers.
Vaishnaw is not the only one. Since 2014 the Government has retired around 400 officers for lack of integrity or non-performance. Most were Group A and Group B officers in line with Prime Minister Modi’s ‘perform or perish,’ mantra to make the work-shy lethargic bureaucracy accountable.
That NaMo meant business became apparent when 381 babus, including 24 from IAS, two IPS and 99 Group B were prematurely compulsorily retired with cut in remuneration for non-performance and being involved in illegal activities by the Personnel Ministry in July 2017. Pension cut was imposed on 37 Group A officers including 5 IAS to underscore probity and performance as twin pillars of good governance.
Besides, 199 Group A officers, including 8 IAS were penalised on remuneration. Strict action was also initiated against officers on foreign postings who were continuing on assignments beyond their approved tenures. Two years later 16 IAS officers, two IPS, 7 IFS were dismissed on corruption charges.
However, such episodic disciplinary action will not solve a systemic problem as it is a drop in the ocean of nearly 90,000 Group A officers including 2,953 IAS, IPS, IFS and 2.9 lakh Group B employees officials. In fact, a recent survey by Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy rates India’s bureaucracy as worst among Asian countries. A 9.21 rating out of 10, worse than Vietnam (8.54), Indonesia (8.37), Philippines (7.57) and China (7.11)
It is open secret many mid-career and senior officers have integrity and/or performance deficits and Government needs to find ways to identify and offload them alongside recruiting meritorious replacements. The guaranteed promotion system irrespective of performance, too many departments performing no significant functions and the corrupt nexuses with netas over a long career and moneyed interests, all combine to ruin many officers.
Undeniably, the bureaucracy is a powerful lobby. An obscurantist force often rivaling politicians with its fair share of crooks, criminals and cheats. A majority of who work on the dictum, show me the face I will show you the rule. Which translates into grease my palms else I will read you the riot act and how!
Add to this, States are notorious for having a “committed bureaucracy” or being aligned to Parties, resulting in a spate of transfers and hounding out following a political change. Every change of guard leads to ad nauseum transfers resulting in most officials taking no initiative.
Indeed, the political identification of officials is becoming so marked that even bureaucrats are able to predict who will occupy which top post, if ‘X’, ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ Party or individual comes to power! Confessed a former Cabinet Secretary, “the problem is endemic in States like UP, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, where Chief Ministers have failed to draw a distinction between “political direction and political interference.”
Chimed in another, “Bureaucrats were to be checks in the system. The checks have turned into cheques while the balance is out of the window! The civil service has become an elite self perpetuating club which protects its perks, turf and corners all top jobs. Adeptly they have created jobs like regulators and committees, cornered by them alongside misusing their office to benefit a Party or cultivate certain constituencies while in office.”
Worse, instead of putting the right man in the right job, netas invariably end up choosing a wrong man for the right job for the wrong reasons. Brining matters to such a pass that caste, corruption, pliability and political connections alone count when it comes to promotions. Thus, administration become increasingly weak and arbitrary since there is no time to acquire even minimum knowledge necessary for discharge of functions.
Clearly, mid-career appraisals to weed out incompetent officers will have to go on concurrently with greater public service recruitment. Sadly, lateral hiring hasn’t taken off with recruits struggling for acceptance and direction. Only 4% of India’s workforce comprise public servants compared to 22.5% in UK, 13.5% in US and 28% in China.
Part of the problem of ridding deadwood is primarily India’s labour laws which are the most restrictive anywhere, making it hard to sack staff for any reason other than criminal misconduct. Add to this the wheels of justice hardly move. It took 24 years to sack a CPWD assistant executive engineer who went on leave in 1990 and never returned to his desk after his requests for additional leave were denied.
Happily some States led by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, have changed the law to make it easier to hire and fire staff. A move welcomed by industry leaders but opposed by labour unions. Others too must reform their public employment policies as combined employment of States is much more than Central Government and State bureaucracy’s interface with the aam aadmi is much larger.
The Centre and States with their 444 Central PSUs and 1,136 State PSUs should also pursue disinvestment more vigorously and use part of the proceeds to reform administration. An efficient bureaucracy is key to economic acceleration.
Questionably, will babus have courage to correct themselves? Can competence and integrity, not allegiance become criteria for selection?
The writing is on the wall. It is time babudom shrugs off inertia and restores professionalism based on absolute, not obsolete principles. It must give serious thought to determining what action needs to be taken collectively to remove administrative deficiencies, expose political malfunctioning and restore the system One way is to internalize the zero tolerance principle and the “sunset principle” as in US. Under this method, justification for any Governmental activity is all time under scrutiny so that no acts of misdemeanour take place.
Undoubtedly, if our bureaucrats don’t change their values, a time will come when they will become increasingly irrelevant. Look how the country is rapidly progressing despite the bureaucracy. It may exist by the sheer force of Newton’s First Law of inertia but it will not be playing a role which would make it a meaningful part of the governance. Will our bureaucrats rise to the occasion or will they allow the steel frame to rot and rust as they revel in mediocrity and debase themselves as an I Am Sorry (IAS) service? — INFA