A V Rajwade: Reforming public institutions

WORLD MONEY/ Ours is perhaps one of the least citizen-friendly administrations in the world

In last Monday's issue of India Today, Arvind Virmani wrote an interesting analysis of the election results. To summarise, he finds a correlation between the change in GDP growth over 1999-2000 to 2003-04, compared to the previous five years, and the election results.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Digvijay Singh and Chandrababu Naidu were defeated because the growth from 1999 to 2004 was lower than the previous five years; on the other hand, the secret of Laloo Yadav's victory is that "The average rate of growth of Bihar's GDP in the past five years (1999-2000 to 2003-04) is 60 percent higher than what it was in the previous five years (4.8 percent a year)".

In short, the voters punished incumbents recording slower growth and rewarded those registering improvement. More evidence of the assumed wisdom of the Indian voter? But this apart, do the comparative growth rates evidence that the interest the head of state government takes in the administration has little influence on growth?

Surely Singh and Naidu took far greater interest in running and administering their states than Yadav did "" Bihar's reputation of being the worst-administered state is well deserved and safe under the current government. And yet the growth rate improved by as much as 60 per cent, that too over a five-year period. Or, are the numbers an indication of the quality of our statistics?

While I have no answers to the questions, I fully subscribe to the emphasis on reform of administration and public institutions that the prime minister placed in his speech to the nation on June 24. To quote him, "The reform of administration and of public institutions to improve efficiency and the quality of delivery services will be our immediate priority."

In the hierarchy of reforms, this is likely to be the one most difficult to implement, if only because the implementers themselves have a direct interest in its failure. But it is also essential if we are to have a Chinese-scale growth rate. If more and more people compare India and China, the one area where China beats us hollow is in the attitude of its bureaucracy.

To quote Gurcharan Das (Times of India, June 13): "I asked these worthies why they preferred to invest in China. One of them gently corrected me, 'Forget China, we have much greater investments than India in smaller countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam.' I asked, 'Why? Don't you like us?' 'We love India, but we hate your red tape. ...Face it, Mr Das, Indians are a great people, but your red tape is the killer'."

But leave aside the foreign investor. Ours is perhaps one of the least citizen-friendly administrations anywhere in the world. For the simplest and most routine of operations, one faces enormous difficulties and stonewalls impervious to all the letters you may write or the pleadings you may make. To get a modicum of service, you need to "go through" someone who is either influential or knows how, how much, and whom to bribe "" whether in the land registry office, the ration office and so on.

While the government has major plans for agriculture, poverty alleviation and so on, these have to be implemented through the same bureaucracy.

One wonders what percentage of the money actually spent by the government of India reaches those for whom the benefits are intended "" 15 to 20 per cent, as Rajiv Gandhi once estimated? Surjit Bhalla's article "Let them eat snakes" in this paper (June 26) analyses how an increase in expenditure on education is inversely proportional to the results delivered.

There is, of course, another side of our administrative culture "" if indifferent to the citizens' needs, the bureaucracy is extremely enthusiastic in hounding those who happen to displease the powers that be. If the share market falls, despite a well-received Budget, the various arms of the state immediately leave everything else aside and start searching for the "bear cartel".

If Tehelka demonstrates on videotape the corruption in defence purchases, the entire machinery of the state ensures that not only Tehelka, but even some of its shareholders, are put out of business, if not in jail. Nothing, of course, happens to the civil and military officers caught on the tape.

Take again the December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament. One of those implicated, S A R Gilani, was acquitted by the High Court because the sole piece of evidence did not even remotely, "far less definitely and unerringly," point to Gilani.

As I had argued earlier, nobody in the investigative agency or the lower courts seems to have considered himself responsible to stop the harassment of a citizen. Surely, the buck should have stopped much earlier and an utter waste of time and public resources avoided?

Another manifestation of the problem is in the administration of the public sector, which, too often, follows one of two dicta "" management by vigilance or management to please the political master.

The vigilance-dominated culture means that decisions give far more importance to procedures than to substance; that it is much safer not to take decisions and allow things to drift rather than decide on merits and face the possibility of questioning.

The financial and the economic/ opportunity costs of our government and public institutions, their pampered and constitutionally-protected employees, are mindboggling. The administration needs drastic reform and the prime minister's priority is correct. Will he succeed? Let us wish him well in the endeavour anyway!

Tailpiece: The September 11, 2001, tragedy in the US led to 4,400 compensation claims for injuries and 2,900 for deaths. All the cheques, with compensation ranging from $ 500 to $ 8.6 million, have been mailed in less than three years. Any comparison with the Bhopal 1984 tragedy claims?

Email: avrco@vsnl.com