Administrative reforms stuck in red tape

Haryana’s first ever administrative reforms commission was set up in November 2007 with much fan fare to recommend appropriate changes in the functioning of its departments and promote efficiency,economy and transparency in the delivery of services.

The commission was headed by former cabinet minister Karan Singh Dalal and had two members. Expert committees under the commission reported on various aspects of the administration and suggested several important and large scale structural and functional changes in the government,none of which have been implemented till date.

For instance,the report on district administration,completed by the commission in October 2008,recommended the re-organisation of the state into 15 districts comprising of six complete assembly constituencies with three adjoining districts constituting two complete assembly constituencies. The report added that each district should have three sub-divisions and each sub-division should have two tehsils. The tehsil should be the basic unit of administration with geographical continuity.

Suggesting major changes in the manner in which land is acquired in the state,the report stated that the acquisition agency should make a ‘statutory preliminary announcement/declaration’ setting the process of preliminary survey in motion. “The further consequence of this announcement/declaration shall be that no interest created,or modifications made in the land after the announcement has been made,will be valid grounds for objections to the acquisition,” stated the report.

It also recommended that the government should fix a reasonable tenure of all district-level officers. “Government should demonstrate it without any ambiguity by mentioning it in the posting order,” stated the report.

It also suggested that it should be binding on Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) to build old age homes,orphanages,residential schools for the blind,hearing and speech impaired,schools for mentally challenged,over night shelters for the destitute in every district headquarters.

The report recommended the constitution of a standing coordination and monitoring committee for prosecution of criminal cases at district level. It also recommended the constitution of a district planning and monitoring committee which would replace the public relations and grievance committee as it currently exists. Another recommendation was to do away with the the practice of government hospitals not conducting any postmortem examinations after the sunset.

Before the HARC was disbanded in January this year,its reports were submitted to a cabinet sub- committee,headed by Power Minister Captain Ajay Yadav,which was to go through the recommendations and take appropriate action. The cabinet sub-committee took its own sweet time to go through the reports and has now prepared a report on the applicability of these suggestions.

“Our report on the recommendations of the commission is ready and has to be now discussed by the cabinet in its next meeting,” said Captain Ajay Yadav.