The flab busters

The Manmohan Singh government8217;s interventions on bureaucratic reform are beginning to add up to a coherent plan. Ever since it took charge, this government has insistently focused on the need to revamp governance, to critique the delivery systems that more often than not fail to take well-meaning policies to the people. Suddenly, suggestions and proposals to tone up the stolid steel frame, by changing the ways in which civil servants are recruited and trained or by recasting the processes by which they are appraised, have begun to find their way into public discussion. This is new and welcome. The latest in the series is the reported resolve arrived at by the Centre8217;s Committee of Secretaries CoS last week to undertake a slew of austerity measures. The stated aim is to cut costs in order to save money for the schemes prioritised by the UPA8217;s Common Minimum Programme. Non-believers will continue to insist that many of the CMP8217;s tall promises will still remain unmet or out of reach. But now it seems that the effort of getting there may in itself prove to be a rewarding one.

The CoS has discussed reducing staff by 10 per cent, cutting non-plan salary expenditure by another 10 per cent, banning officials8217; trips abroad below a certain rank, checks on the misuse of official vehicles, among other measures. Some of these recommendations are potentially large, others promise to chip away at years of accumulated sloth and waste in more token ways. But taken together, they perform one valuable function. They send out a message down the line that drift will no longer be either ignored or excused; there will be greater watchfulness in the system and penalties will be imposed for inefficiency and waste.

The proof of bureaucratic reform will lie in overcoming the predictable resistance to its implementation, of course. But, more modestly speaking, all the official proposals being juggled in the air will have done some good if they can generate a participatory debate 8212; about the role and ethos of government in times when it is becoming less and less overweening in our lives.