Opinion Get on with it,Prime Minister
Now that the Prime Minister has expressed a desire to see the animal spirit revived in the Indian economy,I feel the need to remind him of a promise he made in 2004.
Now that the Prime Minister has expressed a desire to see the animal spirit revived in the Indian economy,I feel the need to remind him of a promise he made in 2004. At his very first press conference as prime minister,he promised to implement administrative reforms,on a priority basis,and if the animal spirit he wants to infuse is that of the tiger,then it is time to fulfill that promise. The animal usually associated with the Indian economy is the elephant because of the pace at which Indias economy has moved. And,there is no doubt that it is because of this somnolent pace that most Indians continue to be deprived of the most basic necessities of modern life.
In my view,though,there is another more important reason why India continues to be counted among the poorest and most backward countries in the world. This reason has to do with the manner in which we are governed. Anyone who covers governance in our ancient land knows that half the work that our officials do is irrelevant and futile. Let me give you some examples.
Indian citizens are among the only people in the world who need to fill arrival and departure cards when they exit and enter their own country. But,instead of doing away with this needless paperwork,Dr Manmohan Singhs government recently made the arrival cards even more detailed. Where do these forms go after they are filled? What purpose do they serve? Here is another example. Most modern,democratic countries have passport application forms that are no more than a page long. In India,if you seek mere renewal of a passport you fill a form the size of a pamphlet. Can someone explain why?
This kind of useless paperwork is so much the leitmotif of Indian governance that India regularly features at the top of the list of countries that are business unfriendly. In the time it has taken to start building Atal Bihari Vajpayees dream network of highways,still a work in progress,China has built a vast infrastructure of highways,high-speed trains,modern airports,cities and ports that competes with the best in the world. Indian officials like to say this is because in a democracy,land acquisition is a problem but what they never admit to are the inexplicable procedural delays that are the real obstacle.
To build anything in India,even a toilet in your own house,requires so many complicated permissions and encounters with so many obdurate officials that most people are defeated before they get started. Imagine then what happens to those brave entrepreneurs who dare to build big government projects like dams and highways? There are delays to get permission,then there are delays to get advance payment to buy necessary materials and then there are delays caused by officials who think they have a right to interfere in the laying of every slab of concrete. And then there is the Ministry of Environment.
Has the Prime Minister checked how long it takes to get environmental clearances for a project? Has he checked how many major projects continue to be blocked by this ministry? There would be no need to block anything if the Ministry of Environment could come up with clear rules and measurable standards. This has not happened. Every project is dealt with individually so it can take months and even years before a vital infrastructure project gets clearance.
At the root of these problems is a system of governance that has remained unreformed since colonial times. An official who is a good example of how little has been changed is the collector. It was a post created by the British Raj to collect taxes from us unruly natives and it should have been abolished long ago. But,the collector continues to be the most important official in rural India and usually behaves like a minor potentate. Without his permission even such ordinary things as repairs to the local school are not possible. Why?
So dear Mr Prime Minister,please,please remember your promise and try and do something about it. A good beginning would be to order every ministry to provide a list of the procedures it follows to do the things it is supposed to. If the procedures are ancient and irrelevant,the minister in charge should be asked to explain why this is so and given a deadline to simplify things. As someone who spends more time than most wandering about government offices. I can say with a degree of certainty that there is not a single ministry in the Government of India that does not need urgent and immediate changes in its manner of functioning. So carry on Prime Minister,we have nothing to lose but a Himalayan range of silly old rules.
Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh
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