India Must Accelerate Pace Of Reforms

The World Bank has lauded the reforms initiatives undertaken by the Indian government so far, terming them as a positive step. In its World Development Report 1997 released yesterday, the Bank has, however, also called for an extension of and acceleration in the reforms process if the country is to catch up with the East Asian tigers.

The report titled The State in a Changing World, has pointed out that the new coalition government that came to power in 1996 after the exit of the P V Narasimha Rao government, has by and large sustained the reforms process. It also adds that the 1997 budget has taken very positive steps in that direction.

 

The report, authored by Ajit Chhibber who heads the Banks World Development Report team, however, warns that though the old national consensus on socialism has given way over the course of a few years, to a new consensus on liberalisation, formidable challenges continue to remain.

The report points out that though most political parties agree on the need for reforms, yet no party is eager to retrench surplus labour, close unviable factories, or reduce subsidies.

The reforms so far are a positive step, but must be extended and accelerated if India is to catch up with the East Asian tigers, the report said. The report quotes the Indian experience where the country has benefited through decentralisation and public participation.

The report highlights the Indian experience to prove that client surveys have helped motivate better public sector performance. It said: By tapping the experience of citizens and having them monitor and evaluate services, surveys have helped identify problems, and design and implement innovative solutions.

In Bangalore, for instance, client surveys were carried out whereby citizens were required to rate the performance of the public agencies by the Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore. The report cards submitted by citizens indicated that the Bangalore Development Authority, responsible for housing and other services, scored the lowest in several categories, including staff behaviour, quality of service, and information provided. Only one per cent of the respondents rated the performance of the public utility as being satisfactory.

However, instead of viewing these results as being a threat, the authority director took them as an opportunity to launch a citizen-government initiative. Other agencies in Bangalore have followed suit and groups in five other Indian cities, including Mumbai, have started using the report card, states the Banks report.

Among the successes accruing from public participation, the report notes forest management efforts in Gujarat and housing schemes in South Africa. The report states that in Indias joint forest management programs, forest departments and local user groups share decision-making authority and control over forest lands and products and revenue. The result has been reduced conflict and increased productivity of the land.

While praising Indias merit-based public sector recruitment policies, the report has also noted some of Indias limitations, saying that there was rampant political interference in employee transfers.

The report states that India was a prime example of a country that has managed to install merit-based recruitment and limit political appointments in the public sector. However, it suffered from rampant political interference in employee transfers.

The report states that Indias bureaucratic capability suffered not merely from legendary amounts of administrative red tape, but from the fact that the autonomy of its highly qualified civil servants was severely circumscribed in practice by frequent, often politically motivated, transfers of personnel and other arrangements.

The report noted that civil servants are transferred frequently and the average tenure of field officers in some states could be as low as eight months.

Hence, The once legendary Indian Civil Service is no longer perceived as a model of efficiency and effectiveness, the report said.