Poor governance due to lack of capacities: HRD minister

Lack of capacities, and not corruption, is one reason why government mechanisms have been unable to deliver good governance at the grassroots levels, union Human Resource Development Minister M. Pallam Raju said Friday.

Raju was speaking at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) world management conference being held at Miramar, near the state capital Panaji.

"People think it is because of corruption that government systems cannot deliver at the grassroots levels. Corruption is a small factor. The larger factor is shortage of capacity of the government to deliver," Raju said.

Instead of undertaking corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities which merely replicate government efforts, management professionals should spend time working along with government agencies, he told corporates.

"Corporate managements should give governments their management time and work along with governments," Raju said.

Raju, a former minister of state for defence, said he had learnt in his stint in the defence ministry that there was a considerable gap between good research and good product delivery.

"There is a gap between good quality research and quality defence products," Raju said, calling on IIM graduates to work in public sector undertakings and defence research organisations to enforce time and quality management principles.