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P. V. Indiresan

The Indian Government is fairly well-respected, but rated low for the quality of life it offers its citizens. Government servants in India should introspect on their performance with a degree of humility, ask of themselves where they have gone wrong, and serve people, says P. V. Indiresan.

THE Planning Commission has initiated an exercise on governance. In all its letters, government officials proclaim that they are on Indian Government Service. The expression, Indian Government Service, has three words. However, almost always, the concern or worry is about government only. Rarely does anyone bother about how their actions serve the Indian nation. Even rarer is the concern about service.

Governments have the sole monopoly for coercion and violence. They compel and bend individuals and institutions to their will. Even in countries where death sentence has been abolished, governments have powers to kill, and do so from time to time. What governments (and government servants), do as a matter of routine, would be considered immoral and not merely illegal, if repeated by anybody else. This monopoly of violence and coercion is at the core of governance.

Protection is the other side of this coin. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks of paritraanaaya saadhoonaam, vinaashaayacha dushkrutaam — protecting good persons, and destroying evil ones. That is an apt description of what governments too should do. If so, how well does the Indian Government protect the innocent, and how well does it punish evil-doers? The Indian Government is fairly well-respected, but is rated low by the UNDP for the quality of life it offers its citizens, even lower by Transparency International for the integrity of its operations. The situation is no better when it comes to the Competitiveness Index. On these three objective counts, India's ranking in the comity of nations is low, very low.

Then, in all honesty, government servants in India should introspect on their performance with a degree of humility, and ask of themselves where they have gone wrong. The Chinese government often asks its officials to make public confessions. We would benefit much by following their example. Unfortunately, our system is such that honest introspection is not possible. That is because, in our judicial process, extraordinary care is taken to analyse and identify the specific flaw, and punish the individual for that flaw. In consequence, 40 years of exemplary devotion can be nullified by one single lapse — whether real or imaginary. As the date of their retirement approaches, government officials live in increasing dread whether at late stage they will be consigned into purgatory by the CBI or the CVC, or the CAG.

We would have done better if we had stuck to our own tradition; which is holistic. In that case, officials would be judged on the basis of their total personality; they will not be crucified for an occasional lapse. Mistakes committed would be set off against the good deeds done. At present, officials are expected not to make even a single mistake. As it is human to err, any person who tries to commit not even one mistake will end up by making the lifelong mistake of doing nothing. When officials are judged on the sum total of their performance, our governance will improve dramatically.

There are sound mathematical reasons in support of this reform. A control system that depends on the integration of all activities will finally end on target with zero error. A control system that seeks to correct each and every individual action will end up with zero growth.

In parallel, every officer should be expected, as devout Roman Catholics do, and as the Chinese insist, to confess their shortcomings periodically. An official who confesses to no flaws is a menace to society.

Such persons can never govern properly. In that case, every office should hold formal, periodic exercises of introspection and produce a formal written report on acts of omission and commission, along with suggestions for improvement. Career advancements should be based on the quality of such introspection and not on the impressions of senior officials alone. There is already a move towards "360 degree appraisal", which involves not only seniors but peers and even juniors. The sooner such an appraisal system is introduced, the faster will governance will improve.

Government officials are administrators, not managers. Administrators aim to preserve the sanctity of law and regulations — no matter what the result may be. That is true particularly of our judicial system, which is concerned about the due process of law than on the ideal of paritraanaaya saadhoonaam or vinaashaayacha dushkrutaam.

Managers are different: Their primary concern is for the result, on reaching the goal. In recent years, there is a lot of fetish about privatisation only because private firms employ officials to manage, while government agencies employ them to administer. If the culture of management were introduced in government agencies too, there will be no need to privatise.

For that reason, the CAG should change its act: It should concentrate on performance audit and not procedure audit. In that case, strict adherence to rules becomes less important than the choice made among the available set of rules, many of whom will be self-contradictory.

After all, in every case, rules can be found either in favour or against of any desired action. Hence, no particular rule is important; it is the selection among the bunch of related rules that is truly critical.

In particular, in our system, rules that are adverse are paramount. Any official, even an office assistant can raise objections and paralyse the highest officials. Thus, every official has the power of veto, not only within his or her own department but on others too.

There is no countervailing positive power vested in any one. This negative bias will be mitigated if every official who raises objections is made to clarify in writing whether he or she is prepared to take individual and personal responsibility for the costs that may result from the obstruction. If they are not prepared to bear responsibility for the consequences, their views should be treated as mere observations and not as objections.

A simple rule insisting that every official who objects or delays should certify whether he or she will take personal responsibility for the consequences or not, will transform our governance. It will cut down delays. It will also make it difficult for corrupt ministers to pressurise honest officials.

Of all costs of governance, delay costs are the worst. Recently, the purchase of advanced jet trainers was finalised. That took all of 20 years. There can be no good governance where there are such delays. Delays are triply cursed: They lead to poor performance; they breed corruption, and lower competitiveness too. The CAG would serve the nation better if it concentrates on the cost of delay rather on the cost of money spent. In addition, citizens should have a simple but effective means to demand compensation for any delays caused by government officials. Once, each and every official is made accountable for any delay caused, governance will improve dramatically.

The financial system is at the root of much bad governance. It operates on the basis of "deficit budget" financing. It guarantees full compensation for losses incurred, and for that reason, confiscates all profits earned. That is no way to enforce efficiency or responsibility. Hence, government departments should get block grants, and allowed to bear the consequences of making losses or profits. It is particularly important to specify the block grant for two or even three years into the future, but revised every six months.

Control theory strongly justifies such a moving window system. Such a system will avoid the wasteful expenditure that is an annual disease that afflicts all governments in the last weeks of the financial year when they hurried exhaust budgetary allocations without concern for utility.

The Indian Government scores low on the issue of transparency. At times, the secrecy is ridiculous. For instance, photography is not allowed in airports; maps of many parts of India cannot be purchased. At the same time, any one can buy them in the US who can supply even more accurate satellite maps than our government has. The Government operates on the principle "need-to-know". That should be replaced by the principle "need-to-hide".

In particular, the 30-year rule of secrecy for all government files has become a cover for bad service. One can understand that many issues concerning internal or external security or external relations require long-term confidentiality. That is not the case in service departments such as education, health, coal and the like. In all such departments, the rule should be that files will be thrown open for public inspection after one year. Such reduction in the period of secrecy is essential for high transparency and for good service.

Abou Ben Adhem's name led all the rest in the list prepared by the angel only because he loved his fellow-men, and not for his love of God. Likewise, our officials will have their names on top and not at the bottom if they start loving people rather than love power.

(The author is former Director, IIT Madras. Response may be sent to indresan@vsnl.com)

(This is 105th in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on August 25.)

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