Bureaucratic Reforms
Is the bureaucracy in the states more responsive, efficient and effective
than the bureaucracy at the Centre?
A very pertinent and thoughtful question that arises in the matter of bureaucratic performance in the states and that at the centre is whether the bureaucracies in the states could be more efficient, effective and better oriented towards delivery of services than their counterpart at the centre.
The answer to this question would depend upon the bureaucracy of a particular state and the political leadership at the helm of affairs there. Now, let us take the examples of two states, namely Bihar and Gujarat, which have been in limelight for their achievements.
In Bihar, any one can now immediately see the difference in the performance of the local government vis-୶is the performance of the state government about three years back. There is a perceptible, positive and radical change in the law and order situation, provision of health and education, road building and provision of other social services being delivered to the people. Similarly, in the case of Gujarat, the general feedback is that the government means business, bureaucracy there has become focused on performance and people have been brought to the centre of the government activity.
How has it happened that the same class of bureaucrats who were traditionally lazy, lethargic and insensitive to the needs of the people have suddenly risen and geared themselves up to serve the cause of the people. The following reasons will highlight as to how this miracle has happened.
First and foremost, the difference has come on account of the political leadership at the top in these two states. In case of Bihar, it is the vision of Chief Minister which has made all the difference and so is the case in Gujarat as well. If we have to look in to four factors that have made the greatest difference, these are: honesty and integrity of the leader in all respects; a long term vision; a hard, determined and focused quality of execution of the vision with all the micro details; and a new paradigm that development agenda serves the largest number of people in the state on a non-discriminatory basis.
Coming to performance of the bureaucracy in these two states, the same set of lazy bureaucrats have suddenly turned around and guided by the leadership at the top have become performance oriented. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that it is leader at the helm of affairs at the top who has inspired the entire bureaucracy with his own vision, execution skills and the integrity of performance with a no nonsense approach.
Now coming to the organisational differences between the bureaucracies in the states Vis a Vis the bureaucracy at the center, the former is much less hierarchy oriented. In most of the cases, the minister directly controls the district chiefs (DMs/DCs), who in turn are held answerable. Commissioners in the Commissionerates and Secretaries in the secretariat only assist their political leaders, who are better devoted to performance. But certainly with relatively fewer tiers in the bureaucracy, the communication process is much faster and release of funds and utilization thereof for the projects are much easier.
This can be easily compared with the deeply hierarchical bureaucracy at the centre, which makes it impossible for a clear process of communication and execution of the work involved. Of course, the question of an inspired leadership at the centre which is missing makes all the difference in the lackluster performance of the central government.
Thus, while the top tiers of the government in the states has fewer hierarchies, the top tiers at the centre has been growing at an exponential rate, so much so that in certain departments, the weight of bureaucracy itself has become a self limiting factor in providing for efficient and effective governance by the central government.
A serious fall out of deeply hierarchical system at the center is that the top bureaucrats are at odds to draw any long term vision for the government and for the people, as they have just one to two years left for retirement. It is difficult to find people at the top, who are left with any enthusiasm or determination to either achieve something, least of all, for long term. They also become self centered and greedy in order to seek post retirement parking places. This is in sharp contrast to younger secretaries, who emerge at the state level. These younger officers may be in the age group of 40 to 45 years and are still left with energy and enthusiasm to pursue certain objectives on long term basis.
Another serious problem with central bureaucracy relates to co-ordination of work horizontally and vertically in getting any proposal through. Any proposal having an investment of Rs. 100 crores or above has to go through several departments and files keep tossing up and down across those department. This may consume anywhere between three to six years, by which time the whole idea of having such a proposal of huge investment may have undergone drastic changes. The official concerned in the meanwhile may change, ministers may change or even the government may change and under such circumstances, projects themselves usually get shelved. Again this is in sharp contrast to the working of bureaucracy at the state level, where, if the projects are initiated with the initiative of the minister or secretary concerned, the time taken in approvals by various departments may range from three months to one year, provided the chief minister and the minister concerned are genuinely interested. Thus, the time taken in approvals may be much shorter.
It is high time that the central government takes urgent steps for cutting down the number of tiers of the central bureaucracy, so that the communication process becomes faster and the vision of the political leadership can be translated in a seamless manner to provide quicker delivery of services to the citizens.
There has to be a radical approach to liquidate these useless self-serving hierarchies at the Centre. One way would be to focus on the organisations as they existed three decades back (say a cut-off date of 1st January 1980) and organise the bureaucracy at the top level in accordance with the numbers and tiers of government existing at that time. This would eliminate the unnecessary expansion that has taken place in the last over three decades.
How many tiers are ideally suited in any organisation? The answer could
be found in the famous statement of Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of General
Electric. According to him, the number of tiers required in any organisation
should be half of what you would normally perceive. It may be mentioned
that as CEO at General Electric, Jack cut down the bureaucracy in the
headquarters as well as at the field levels. This cutting down of hierarchy
created miracles in terms of results that General Electric achieved during
his stewardship.
It is high time that the administrative reforms committee set up by the
central government urgently addresses the question of reducing the hierarchy
at the top tiers of the government, no matter that it hurts some of the
bureaucrats.
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