Patwari or District Collector — who is more important to a common person?

I would argue that grassroot level governance is the most important in the overall governance paradigm

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4 min readNew DelhiFeb 14, 2025 06:32 PM IST First published on: Feb 14, 2025 at 01:01 PM IST

In the Una district of Himachal Pradesh, I, as district collector during 2013-16, went to a village. During my time there, an old woman asked for the resolution of her land problem which had been going on for more than two decades. She did not understand who I was and where I stood in the governance hierarchy. I finished her long-pending work; she was elated. She blessed me by saying: “You are a very good person — may you rise to become a patwari”. The village’s patwari was among those who accompanied me. He remained silent, others were amused and baffled — especially the younger officers.

For a common person, a patwari is more important than a district collector; an electricity lineman is more important than an executive engineer; a police constable more important than a superintendent of police; a forest guard more important than a divisional forest officer; a school teacher more important than a director of education; and a local doctor or nurse in the Primary Health Centre more important than the district civil surgeon. This is because, on a day-to-day basis, they interact with the patwari, the lineman, the constable. It doesn’t mean that the higher authorities are less important. But if we count the number of times a common person goes to a local doctor as opposed to the district civil surgeon, or a local teacher vis-à-vis the district education officer, we will know the difference. If we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government functionaries at the field level — also called “street-level bureaucracy” or the “last-mile stage” — we can improve the country’s governance overall.

The loud promises made at the national or state level are very difficult to implement for the common citizen at the local level. That is what we must focus on. People evaluate everything from their own level.

Again, in one of my visits as the district collector in the Kullu district of Himachal (2007-08), I went to a village and asked a woman selling vegetables on the side of the road: “Why don’t you set up a shop?” I told her that she could easily get a loan or accrue the benefits of government schemes. She didn’t know how local bankers work — neither she had money, nor time. “I will have to complete a lot of formalities,” she added. So schemes like direct benefit transfers and zero-balance bank accounts will lead to more results if we can simplify them. Author Cass R Sunstein, in his book, Simpler: The Future of Government, notes that simplicity is the sine qua non of success of a public programme or policy.

We need to improve governance at the grassroots. The performance there should match up to the performance at the Centre and state level. If people can not see the things said at the higher levels of government, they do not appreciate the importance of such things. If ground realities at the village level are something else, they do not see much value in what the minister or chief minister might be saying.

Common people suffer a lot at the hands of the grassroots-level bureaucracy, often because of lack of transparency, accountability and accessibility. If we can implement these three most important tenets of good governance as the World Bank says, we can achieve efficiency. I would argue that grassroot-level governance is more important than central governance. There should be more focus on practical implementation of ideas, policies and programmes. The perception of the government largely depends on the governance at the ground level.

So if the patwari works as efficiently as the district collector, people going to him/her will experience better governance. If the local police constable writes their FIRs without any pulls or pressures from vested interests, the working of the police department would be seen as commendable. If we can make this happen, I think the common people will have a better life and a positive outlook on the government.

(The writer is an IAS officer, presently Secretary Finance and Planning, Government of Himachal Pradesh. Views are personal)