Good Governance in an era of Globalisation

If managed well, the interplay between globalisation and good governance could become a trans-formative process to stabilise society. Such a type of stabilisation can be achieved through:


- Improvement in public security, economic management and public administration
- Shared system of values through core public and private sector institutions
- Development of civil society and indigenous executive, legislative, judicial and administrative institutions
- Following the good governance norms, democratic development and an effective capacity for development


Because of the profound transformations the global economy is witnessing - transformations arising out of the global market economy and out of the amazing new ICTs - there is an imperative need for efficient and equitable governance, robust global co-operation, strong institutions, exemplary leadership and perhaps especially a powerful global rule of law.

India set to expend more on atomic power!

For the 12th FYP, the Centre's proposed nuclear investment envisages a cumulative investment of close to Rs. 87000 crore. This is undoubtedly the highest allocation ever on beefing up atomic generation capacity. Of this, about Rs. 64800 crore has been fixed on new starts, which largely entail imported light-water, reactor-based projects to be set up with equipment supplies from global vendore such as France's Areva, US firms GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse and Russia's Atomstroyexport.


Currently, there are 20 nuclear reactors in India being operated by state-owned NPCIL, that add up to a capacity of 4,780 MWe (mega-watt electrical). NPCIL - which has a surplus of Rs. 12000 crore, including cash reserves - has said that it funds new capacity of up to 10,000 MWe through its own financial resources and is looking for financing from other sources, including through JVs with core sector PSUshaving strong financials and cash flows such as NTPC, IOC, Nalco and ONGC.


Progress is expected despite strong protests from locals and activists. The end to the Kudankulum stalemate is seen as a positive signal for new projects on the anvil. The Centre has, in principle, given a nod for 6 greenfield sites in Haryana, AP, MP, Gujarat and WB for setting up a string of new nuclear units. The bulk of this capacity augmentation by NPCIL will be through large-sized indigenous 700 MWe PHWRs and imported LWRs ranging between 1000 MWe and 1650 Mwe. For the LWRs, the govt. has shortlisted Toshiba-Westinghouse's ' AP1000' reactors, GE-Hitachi's 'ESBWR" reactors, Areva's EPRs and the Russian 'VVER' reactors, which are already being deployed at Kudankulum. 

P.A.

Q. The greatest menace among the All India Services is that it is highly politicized. Comment.

Ans: With the rise in the number of complex activities involving social security schemes, welfare programmes, and handling of technical tasks, the civil servants today increasingly find themselves placed in the political arena. No public bureaucracy operates in vacuum. The All India Services have to be seen in a political context and the long held politics-administration dichotomy has given way to a more effective concept of cooperation between the bureaucrats and the political class. Although policy making within a political environment is one of the core functions in the higher echelons of civil services, yet the concept of neutrality has long been held as a desirable aspect.   

Slowly but surely, the politico-administrative scenario began to change. Civil Servants increasingly became pliant tools in the hands of their political masters as they learnt quickly that they should not rock their boats too much. While R.N. Bannerjee, who was full-time Secretary to Nehru and Patel, could state that Secretaries in his time never felt that they were 'politically influenced, embarrassed or over-powered by them', there has been a steady deterioration in the 'ministerial timber' and the mounting populist pressure to deliver election promises compels the politicians to use the civil servants as sacrificial lambs. The problem is compounded by arbitrary, capricious or unfair political actions - transfers or disciplinary proceedings against a neutral officer. Many of the capable and honest officers thus give in. Ministers increasingly prefer officials who love to say "Yes Sir", thus blindly supporting their line of action without asking uncomfortable questions. This is one step away form the civil servants anticipating the views of the Minister and advising accordingly. Thus builds up a nexus or cozy relationship, where both stand to gain. The recent arrest of two IAS officers in Hyderabad by CBI officials has brought the matter to notice once again. The ARC report had also made a mention of this growing nexus. Such unhealthy practices tend to threaten the very fabric of the AIS. A further development of this unhealthy trend is the emergence of personal affiliations leading to an element of "politicisation" among civil servants. Following the rules in transfer and posting remains the only solution to end this nexus. 

 Fortunately, there have been civil servants who have had the courage of conviction to stand up and fight for the values they cherish and the principles they uphold. There was A.K. Chatterjee, an IAS officer in Patna, who in 1992 sought voluntary retirement after exposing the perverted politico-administrative system in Bihar attributed to the greedy politicians and corrupt self-seeking civil servants. Then there was P.S. Appu, who resigned from LBSNAA, Mussorie to stand by his principles. Therefore, it is not right to paint the entire All India Services with the same brush. 


B.G. Deshmukh, a former Cabinet Secretary believes that bureaucrats should not play politics but understand how politics works. They should be guided by a self-imposed code or by some broad principles enforced by a committee of peers. A belief that the service should never get politicized was religiously upheld by our the leaders of the past and it should remain true even today. Sardar Patel correctly stated, "The Services must be above party and we should ensure that political considerations either in its recruitment or in its discipline and control are reduced to the minimum, if not eliminated altogether". Hence, a civil servant cannot afford to be depoliticised, but he certainly cannot be fully politicised. Put differently, his involvement must be in policy politics and not party politics. 

LPG : Implementation - the main challenge in India.

Globalisation implies the integration of a country's economy with the world economy. It refers to the cross-border exchange of goods, services, products, capital, ideas, technology etc. Liberalisation refers to the policy of removal of restrictions, trade barriers and protectionist measures to enable the free flow of capital, technology and services. Privatisation involves attempts to transfer activities from the public to the private sector or a reduction in the size of the public sector. It also implies a reliance on the market and deregulation by the govt.


Liberalisation is a direct consequence of globalisation of credit and commodity markets while privatisation is a by-product of a composite of factors including the recognition of the need to for the improvement in efficiency and competition, reduction of public budget deficits, widening of the ownership of the economic assets, elimination of political interference in the management of various PSEs, up gradation of technology etc. Today, privatisation is at the top of the economic agenda of many developing countries. Most of them are restructuring the public sector in order to gain financial solvency and to reduce the revenue deficits. It is a fact that the growing interest in privatisation is a direct consequence of the maladies of the PSEs. The emergence of the concept of LPG has given a jolt to the time-honoured conception of state activity and the doctrine of the infallibility of state-controlled economic activity. Even a communist nation like China has taken a pragmatic course in its drive towards modernisation.


During the last decade, the enterprise reform has deepened with greater autonomy. Ownership has been separated from the management and government from enterprises by introducing the contract responsibilit system, leasing property transfer etc. so as to inject more dynamism into the enterprises and help them become independent entities responsible for their own profits and losses. A market system has been gradually taking place yet many critics believe there is a still a lot to do in this front.


Economic development is a complicated phenomenon and not amenable to simple and clear cut formula. it needs a supportive environment with the interweaving of sophisticated technology, skill diffusion, social ethics and values and a state structure with specific forms of mediation in regard to the capital-labour relationship.

Black Hawk Coming???

Yeah...you read that right! Not just speculations though! In fact, a team from Sikorsky - the makers of this beast, has already given a grand presentation to the Defense Ministry this month. It's not very clear though on whether India would be delivered the stealth technology along with the machine. That remains to be seen, given the fact that the U.S. is known to be stingy when it comes to technology transfer of its highly valued toys! Not that we won't seek the stealth but that comes only if the deal comes ripe. By all probability, we are being offered the latest UH-60M Black Hawk. With highly classified avionics, radars and weapons, the Black Hawk is definitely the most formidable and expensive helicopter around. The acquisition of the naval version of Black Hawk - the Sea Hawk is on the anvil for the Indian Navy and we may as well have 16 of these multi-role choppers soon enough.

The UH-60M will be highly useful for high altitude terrain operations like Siachen as well as in the desert regions. No wonder why all the branches of the U.S. army make use of this beast!

Major Concerns with regard to Administrative Reforms (to be continued)

"Administrative Reforms" are nothing but the artificial inducement of administrative transformation against resistance. They pave the way for a new order and refer to the formal, mechanistic and meditated process of structured change. Like F. Riggs mentioned, administrative reform is 'a problem of dynamic balancing'.

Some of the major concerns of administrative reforms in India are:

1. Efficiency and Economy:

Both these aspects come from the time the Management Sciences evolved during F.W. Taylor's age. Even Fayol and Weber had stressed on their importance in an organisation for avoidance of excessive costs and wastage. In India, the reports of Secretariat Reorganisation Committee (headed by Girija Shankar Bajpai, 1947) and The Economy Committee (under Kasturbhai Lalbhai, 1948) & A.D. Gorwala's Report (1951) set the tone for stress for focus on efficiency and economy. Later, Paul H. Appleby's recommendation of setting up of an O&M division by GoI went a long way to promote efficiency in Govt. circles. Also, with the advent of technology in administration, one can notice emphasis on productivity in Govt.

2. Specialisation

It was Max Weber who stressed on the need for specialisation as an important feature of an ideal type of bureaucracy. This brings us to the age-old conflict between the Generalists and the Specialists. Of late, there has been stress on differentiation of structures and functions and allocation of tasks and responsibilities among the personnels based on their specialisation in their respective field. There has been a new dawning with regard to the critical role of a specialist in top posts of the Govt. In fact, the first ARC, 1966 had recommended that every member of the Indian Administrative Services must opt for specialisation in any one of the 8 functional areas it highlighted in its report. Later in 1979, the synthesis between the generalists and the specialists became more feasible with the doors of the Civil Services opened for medical and engineering graduates too. The first ARC did take a cue from the famous Fulton Committee Report (UK) that stressed on the important role specialists can and should be allowed to play in British bureucracy. In India, though the change is not very drastic, yet the trend is unmistakably clear with the growing competition between the public and private sector, expansion of the MNCs, growing stress on technology. Thus, the road to rigorous specialisation appears to be the only path to rapid development.

3. Effective Coordination

Mooney had considered 'coordination' as the first principle of any organisation. There has been a distinctive focus on administrative coordination in the reports of N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar (1949), ARC etc as also in many of the individual state committees. Also, the Committee on Indian Foreign Service chaired by N.R. pillai emphasised on the need to achieve coordination among the several components of the Ministry of External Affairs. Such steps have culminated into setting up of boards, commissions and committees. However, it appears that in the area of structural reorganisation, the Govt.'s approach has remained ambivalent.

4. Administration and Development of Public Personnel

In most of the reports submitted since independence, a lot of focus has been on the salient aspects of personnel administration like manpower, recruitment, career planning, training and promotion, performance appraisal etc. A.D. Gorwala's report (1951), V.T. Krishnamachari's report ( 1962), ARC report on personnel administration (1969), D.S. Kothari's report (1977) etc. - all have made significant contributions to this field.

Let's toil....

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of fate
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.