Wanted: Reforms in Administration

Whither Ethics in Governance?

FICCI is mooting an aggressive push for Governance reforms and accountability; Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP and President FICCI has said, "The decline in governance and institutions represents a serious challenge to India.  After a decade and a half of focusing on economic and business reforms, it is imperative that the more difficult and as important objectives of governance reforms and accountability become the most  important priority / focus in the coming years, and should find a place in the manifestos of all political parties for the forthcoming general elections. "
Echoing Mr. Chandrasekhar's sentiments, Mr. Veerappa Moily, Chairman Second Administrative Reforms Commission, made a strong pitch for inclusion of governance reforms with a 'people first' approach, in the manifestos of all political parties, while Mr. M Damodaran, former Chairman, SEBI, gave a clarion call to the people to suspend cynicism and create an environment that promotes decision-making and incentives performance with accountability.
Mr. Moily, Mr. Chandrasekhar, Mr. Damodaran were speaking at the first of FICCI's Governance and Politics series of seminars which was also addressed by Mr. B K Chaturvedi, Member, Planning Commission & former Cabinet Secretary; Justice N Santosh Hegde, Karnataka Lokayukta; Dr. Parth J Shah, President, Centre for Civil Society and Prof. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President & Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research.
Mr. Damodran wondered why the intelligentsia in this country was not raising its voice against the fact that a dozen or so Bills were passed by Parliament is just 17 minutes! "2008 will be a  record of sorts by Parliament which met the least number of days in a year," evoking some protests that the Parliament of India was not doing what the Constitution expects it to do.
While maintaining that the judicial system in India was "absolutely first rate", Mr, Damodaran  quoted a Supreme Court judgement describing the judgement of the division bench of a high court as "judicial indiscipline". Why was Parliament vary of taking a stand on the impeachment of judges, he asked.
He found fault with the governance practices adopted by the executive, which was guilty of extreme centralisation of decision-making. Why should all papers, regardless of whether they pertained to matters of policy or not, find their way to the Minister's desk, he wondered, and called for accountability in all echelons of the government machinery.
Mr. Moily said the Congress Party had authorised him to ensure that reforms in governance should find a dominant place in the party's election manifesto. He appealed to all political parties to adopt the reform agenda so that that there is a national consensus on this vital area. "We need to re-invent the wheel of reforms, discard the primacy given to India's 'steel frame' and adopt a 'People First' approach to governance," he said.
Mr. B K Chaturvedi, in his address, underlined the need for new laws to re-engineer processes and make them people-friendly. "This will be a hard grind and will require change agents attached with the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers to oversee the implementation of the reforms," he pointed out.
He emphashsied the need for a law to reform the recruitment system in the civil services so that younger people with fresh minds enter the service and their tenure is fixed for a minimum period of two years. He also called for political consensus on civil service neutrality.
Justice Santosh Hegde, pointed out that the administration was riddled with corruption and stressed the need the need for an ombudsman to oversee good governance practices. He lamented that only two states in India had passed a law to appoint Lok Ayuktas. In Karnataka, he said, 285 officers were nabbed for taking bribe in the last two-and-a-half years alone.
The biggest drawback in administration, he said was the lack of access of the people, the aam aadmi, to the authorities responsible for problem-solving, while cautioning that the patience of the common was not infinite.
Prof Pratap Bhanu Mehta called for a re-think on what exactly was the government for, and expressed concern that the Indian elite had withdrawn from the public system. He maintained that the system of incentives must be combined with high levels of integrity in governance.
Dr. Parth J Shah suggested that Parliament and state Assemblies should have a fixed five-year term to facilitate long-term decision-making, announce the schedule of Parliament sittings in advance, bring in experts and members of civil society into the Cabinet and election to local bodies through a referendum to bring in more people into the democratic process.