The Hindu Business Line : Common Minimum Programme — Will Manmohan-Chidambaram duo play the magic flute?

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, must demonstrate there is a government that governs, is also effective and will deliver.

SO VERY often the ubiquitous comrades remind the United Progressive Alliance Government to function within the Common Minimum Programme parameters. One constant refrain is the understanding and efficacy of the programme. An ensemble of disparate dispensations has vowed to rule and reform "with a human face". The much-avowed human face is perforce of the destitute, depressed and downtrodden. It is a face Gandhiji advocated to be the talisman, the end-all and be-all, of governance. Plans and manifestos, prime ministers and chief ministers and their parties as a rule promise the moon; they achieve but a fraction of it. Their cadres grow; size of ministries grows; the bureaucracy burgeons. The poor become poorer.

India is home to a third of the world's absolute poor: Some 130 million have no access to basic health-care; 200 million do not get safe drinking water; 70 per cent of the country lacks basic sanitation. The Directive Principles of State Policy provide for universal education, yet one-third of the populace is unlettered. The Constitution provides for the education to be a birth right of a child; yet the number of children not in school is over 50 million. Article 301 of the Constitution provides for freedom of trade and commerce throughout the Indian territory, yet octroi and sales tax constitute great barriers.

Amidst apprehensions as much as aspirations, the CMP unfolds a roadmap the UPA contemplates to pursue for economic growth and poverty alleviation. The bottomline is that the CMP must demonstrate there is a government that governs, is also effective and will deliver. Aside from the rhetoric and platitudes for high growth and social justice, there is this categorical imperative of retrieving the soul of the nation. The country bemoans its loss, the loss of its gentleness, its values, its idealism.

The air is thick with despair and disenchantment. Buffeted and with little real choice, the electorate conveys its disgust by voting out the incumbent, most candidates having regularly betrayed their confidence, and belied their promises. The dance of democracy extracts a heavy toll: Its very concept and values are questioned; an ever new breed of political upstarts descends on the scene with the trappings and a halo of power abrogated to them. A scramble is routinely witnessed for loaves and fishes of office. Many of the netas turned ministers play the Santa Claus, and distribute largesse though at a huge cost to the exchequer.

Disparities really grow not only of incomes, of living conditions, but of behaviour, conduct, and concern. The gentle and the modest steadily dwindle, becoming verily an endangered species. Not that the country does not have a large number of men, women and children, wonderful human-beings.

The system is in a shambles. Behind the thin veneer of white apparel lurks dark deep layers of greed and graft. The criminals are no longer condemned by the collective consciousness.

With impunity, cartels of exploitation grow and prosper. Corruption is the byword, corroding the socio-economic fabric of society. Inferior material is used in critical utilities which endanger lives; collusion of engineers and supervisors with builders and contractors extracts its heavy price; urban agglomerations steadily turn into a pigsty; even hallowed heritage sites are exploited and encroached; the ubiquity of decaying cities signifies a sinful abdication of basic responsibilities; public property is mulcted, encroachments and illegal constructions are regularised to eke votes. Terrorists do not come from out of the blue, that fidayeens live right amongst us under the garb of public servants and political leaders in municipal offices, in collectorates, in hospitals and health centres, among police and municipal offices, in Customs, excise, Central and State tax establishments, in all spheres of public activity, wreaking harassment to hapless citizens.

Free India's first Premier and stately stalwarts such as Sardar Patel had enunciated clear canons of conduct by ministers, legislators and civil servants. Today, these golden guidelines have been swept aside, in fact, derided. Administrative steel-frame has become pliant, servile, and manipulative. Misuse of public office and public resources is rampant.

Austerity and probity is denounced and scoffed at. Let there be a concerted campaign to restore and implement the edicts of Nehru and Patel, to avoid waste, shun misuse of public funds, eschew ostentation and extravagance — as much as interference in routine administration. Austerity needs to be pursued by those in power and position, to establish their identity with the common folk.

Let the Council of Ministers and senior-most echelons in bureaucracy set an example and scrupulously shun any five-star hospitality. The `VIP' culture that has spread like a virus needs to be exorcised. None other than the President, the Vice-President and the Prime Minister be allowed to jump the queue at airports, for example, or avoid immigration/emigration and security drill. Let there be an affidavit filed at the end of the year by each PSU's CEO that it has not expended on hospitality, renovation, transport and other artifacts for the administrative ministry, ministers, bureaucrats and/or their families.

The need is to emphasise three Ds: Delayering, downsizing and devolution. If anything, this will help engender accountability and efficiency. Important recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission about reduction in strength, in wasteful expenditure, in holidays were mysteriously set aside, while implementing the other facile suggestions. The Commission suggested the complete abolition of the provision of extension in the service rules. Let this be followed, with no post-retirement jobs offered to civil servants.

There needs to be a special emphasis on the effectiveness of public service delivery rather than the quantity of development funding. The system is in need not so much of additional resources, as better policies and sound delivery mechanisms. There is need for teachers to attend schools and doctors to attend health centres and provide health care, for subsidies and public distribution system to reach the needy and the poor, for municipalities to clean drains and refuse. Let there be no mockery of the high and mighty engaged in photo sessions with brooms in hand. Let there be no such frolicsome tamasha. Governance is an earnest business. There is a need to ensure all officers and supervisors move out where action is, to inspect, to lead the teams to do their job thoroughly.

Delivery of services is indeed the most crucial aspect. Countless commissions and committees have diagnosed the disease and prescribed reliefs and redressals. How will yet another administrative reforms commission help?

A crusade needs to be launched to cultivate and sustain the work ethos. In their presentation to the council of ministers, McKinsey explained that growth is mostly about getting the people and machines which are already there to work harder and smarter, "to ensure that 1+1 equals 3". Much like the Finance Minister's mantra for transforming the economy by dint of "good economics, good politics, and hard work", their premise has been that growth will be driven by productivity increases rather than capital investment. Let the broken pieces be fixed; let the good system be restored. Human capital is the key for development, for quality of life, for progress. The country has unwittingly encouraged sloth, indolence, and indifference. A vast number has been fed on a doctrinaire paralysis of work culture, thereby destroying the very basis of growth.

An important instrument of effective governance is good communications. In fact, it is required to be a two-way communication: Frequent personal interface with the people at the grassroots. Officers and supervisors, in addition to ministers, need to be accessible and explain the programmes and plans in the lingo and idiom which the people understand.

For any government, time is short; resources are limited. Revolution of rising expectations would demand concentrated attention on limited spheres of activity at a time. The poor and the disadvantaged need to be helped and steered on a correct path, by example. Thirty-four per cent of India's population is less than 15 years old. There is this familiar impatience of youth for the fruits of development to be in their grasp. They will willingly and cheerfully march along, and even sacrifice, if they find the deeds of the leaders match their words.

Restraint in thought, word and deed, if practised by several scores of ministers sworn in by the President and the Governors, will raise them in public esteem and bring credit to government. They need to sincerely study the job on hand with all its complexities. Let them not fritter away their energy, and newly garnered goodwill, only finding faults and denigrating the predecessors, bargaining for bigger bungalows and portfolios, and exhausting their energy on trivial matters of popular interest. The tasks ahead are daunting, and challenges onerous. Tall promises have a knack of knocking people down. The day of reckoning will not be far.

India needs creativity, resolve, diligence and a vision. It needs to take guard afresh and get on with a new innings, to win. Rabindra Nath's Tasher Desh has a ray of hope to offer, a message wherein citizens, who had lost vitality, and their capacity to respond to the rhythm of life, played a magic flute, whereupon their vitality flowed back. India needs some similar transformation. There is hope the Manmohan-Chidambaram duo will play the magic flute.

(The author is a former Managing Director of CONCOR.)