Reforming India’s Bureaucracy: A Multipronged Approach

Singapore’s government selects and trains the best students for bureaucratic position, a system worth emulating.

As someone with first-hand experience of how babudom (bureaucracy) functions in India, I am often amused, and at times distressed, by people’s assessment of how to cure the many ills of our bureaucracy.

It is understandably difficult for the outside observer to pin down the crux of the problem. It is clearly frustrating for the average Indian to pay taxes to sustain this huge, apparently useless institution whose members seem to only abuse power and enjoy perks and do no good, or not enough, at any rate.

Various analysts have narrowed down the problem to low salaries, fear of the vigilance and audit machinery, lure of post-retirement jobs, general lack of ethics in society and the like. The difficulty is that there is no easy formula to tackle these problems.

I heartily agree with Anja Manuel that India needs “a comprehensive ethics and education campaign in schools and the news media would shift cultural norms away from seeing graft as an inevitable part of life.”

I agree, only partially, with those who blame the 3Cs (Comptroller and Auditor General, Central Bureau of Investigation and Central Vigilance Commission) for the inertia of the Indian bureaucracy. The trouble is that more often than not, the resources of these bodies are being misused to settle scores and wreak revenge.

Very often decisive bureaucrats, who are the epitome of diligence and honesty, are subject to malicious inquiries (initiated by unscrupulous and the dishonest) to reign them in or even as convenient scapegoats.

It is up to the government to re-haul these bodies and to severely punish those found to have abetted the harassment of upright bureaucrats. The careful selection of officers who man these bodies must be given utmost priority.

One idea of giving bureaucrats the option of branching into the regulatory stream after the age of 55 is a good one. It has been stated that “those interested in regulation should be allowed to continue till 65 years, while others follow the direct line operations till 60 or, in exceptional cases, 62 years”. However, how this will solve the “malleability” of regulators is not clear.

In a liberalised market economy, the professionalism and autonomy of the regulator is critical and regulators who are at the end of the day political appointees may necessarily exhibit these traits.

What is needed is more transparency and accountability in regulation. The actions of a number of regulators are still cloaked behind an opaque or at least translucent wall that hides regulatory capture and worse.

One of the ways of achieving this is proper enforcement of the RTI, including the requirement of proactive/suo moto public disclosure which is only being given lip service so far.

The public too needs to wake up and demand more from the government. Further, they must stop paying speed money and using political patronage to manipulate the system.

Bringing in lateral entrants at higher levels of bureaucracy can instil fresh ideas and professionalism provided one can ensure the integrity and autonomy of these experts.

Finally, there is a need to pay well to attract talent. The paring down of the lower level bureaucracy and digitisation of government services must be coupled with a large enough higher level bureaucracy consisting of the country’s best brains, who are rewarded well for work.

The Singapore model, where the government selects and trains the best students for bureaucratic positions on a renewable contract basis, is one worth emulating. They also punish severely for corruption, which acts as an effective deterrent.

All these issues are intricately interlinked and difficult, but not impossible, to tackle provided, that is what Indians really want.

(Archana G Gulati is a civil servant. She can be contacted at [e-mail]. This article has been published as part of a special arrangement with IANS.)