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Polity, Constitution and Governance

Reforms in Governance and Administration:

In the words of Kofi Annan: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” Governance is the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It consists of the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences. Without good governance, no amount of developmental schemes can bring in improvements in the quality of life of the citizens. On the contrary., if the power of the state is abused, or exercised in weak or improper ways, those with the least power in the society – the poor- are most likely to suffer. In that sense, poor governance generates and reinforces poverty and subverts efforts to reduce it. Strengthening governance is an essential precondition to improving the lives of the poor.

The Tenth Plan document identified good governance as the single most important factor in ensuring that the Plan objectives are achieved. Among other things, decentralization of power and citizens’ empowerment, effective people’s participation through state and non-state mechanisms, greater synergy and consolidation among various agencies and programmes of government, civil service reforms, transparency, rationalization of government schemes and mode of financial assistance to states, improved access to formal justice system to enforce rights, reforms and strengthening of land administration and harnessing the power of technology for governance have been identified as the key priorities.

Over the past three years several significant initiatives have been launched to improve the quality of governance. A series of political reforms have been enacted by Parliament by unanimous consent. These include the electoral funding reforms promoting transparency and fairness and creating tax incentives to donors, disclosure of antecedents of candidates contesting for public office, and the 97th Constitutional Amendment limiting the size of the Council of Ministers to 15 per cent of the strength of the Lower House and considerably strengthening anti-defection provisions. A new value added tax (VAT) regime has been introduced recently, which is seen as the most ambitious tax reform after Independence . The path-breaking Right to Information Act has come into effect recently. This new law applies to union and state agencies, local governments and even societies and trusts which receive public funds. This far-reaching law also provides for independent information commissioners, proactive disclosures and reporting mechanisms and has the potential to impact our governance process in a profound and positive way by empowering citizens.

These welcome initiatives indicate that our political system is willing to respond to the growing challenges of governance. The reasonably swift and efficient response of our administration to a series of major natural calamities – the Tsunami of December 2004, the Mumbai floods of July, 2005, and the recent earthquake in Jammu & Kashmir - demonstrates that in times of crisis we are able to marshal our resources effectively. All these and competent election management show that we have an impressive administrative infrastructure and it responds well when objectives are clearly defined, resources are made available and accountability is surely enforced.

However, a lot more remains to be done. There is increasing lawlessness in several pockets of the country, and armed groups are resorting to violence with impunity for sectarian or ideological reasons. The state apparatus is generally perceived to be largely inefficient, with most functionaries serving no useful purpose. The bureaucracy is generally seen to be tardy, inefficient, and unresponsive. Corruption is all-pervasive, eating into the vitals of our system, undermining economic growth, distorting competition, and disproportionately hurting the poor and marginalized citizens. Criminalization of politics continues unchecked, with money and muscle power playing a large role in elections. In general there is high degree of volatility in society on account of unfulfilled expectations and poor delivery.

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Abuse of authority at all levels in all organs of state has become the bane of our democracy. The perception that every political party and politician is corrupt needs to be seriously addressed, and restructuring the systems in all sectors – political, bureaucratic and judicial – is of paramount importance. There is a need to restructure our political and governance institutions and rejuvenate our Republic. Otherwise, the growing cynicism and despair among large sections may shatter public confidence in democratic institutions.

Globalization in an interconnected world is inevitable, but it should not be at the cost of the people. The institutions of state – legislative, executive, and judicial – will have to be strengthened to meet the challenges of globalization. The aspirations of the younger generations, uninhibited by past baggage, and emerging from institutions of higher learning and frontier technologies, will have to be fulfilled as they become the torchbearers of the new century.

In general, the positive power to promote public good seems to be severely restricted, making it difficult for even the most conscientious and competent functionaries to deliver optimal results. The systemic rigidities, needless complexity and over centralization have made most elected politicians and appointed public servants ineffective and helpless. But the negative power of abuse of authority in pursuit of pelf, privilege and patronage, or harassment of public through flagrant violation of law, petty tyranny and nuisance value is virtually unchecked. This imbalance in the exercise of power is at the heart of the crisis of governance. As a result most agencies of government are functioning sub-optimally, and government programmes have not yielded the desired results. At most levels authority is divorced from accountability, leading to a system of realistic and plausible alibis for non-performance. Most functionaries are thus caught in a vicious cycle.

This situation is further aggravated by the phenomenal asymmetry of power in our society. Only about 8 percent of our work force is employed in the organized sector with a secure monthly wage and attendant privileges, and over 70 percent of these workers are employed in government at various levels and public sector undertakings. Such a privileged position gives even the lowliest of public servants enormous power over most of the citizens, given the abject poverty, illiteracy, excessive centralization of power, a culture of exaggerated deference to authority, hierarchical tradition in society, and the legacy of colonial traditions and practices. Any serious effort to make our governance apparatus an instrument of service to the people and a powerful tool to achieve national objectives needs to take into account these two cardinal factors plaguing our polity – the imbalance in the exercise of power, and asymmetry in the wielding of power.

There are two fundamental, interrelated objectives, which need to be achieved in the coming decades. The first is the fulfillment of human potential, prevention of avoidable suffering and ensuring human dignity, access to justice and opportunity to all Indians so that every citizen is a fulfilled and productive human being. The second is the rapid economic growth realizing the nation’s potential and allowing India to play her rightful role in the global arena in order to protect the vital interests of present and future generations, and become an important actor in promoting global peace, stability and prosperity. We need to sharply focus the state’s role and fashion instruments of governance as effective tools in our quest for these national goals.

The economic reform process initiated in 1991 has posed fresh challenges of governance. In the light of the changing domestic and global situation, the role of the Indian state in the coming decade has to be clearly defined. The assumption that market is the answer to all our challenges is a dangerous and irrational one. The state needs to focus on the irreducible role of government that is required to fulfill human potential and promote rapid economic growth. Abdication of the state or its inefficiency in these critical sectors will spell disaster to our future.

The non-negotiable role of the state in four broad areas needs to be clearly recognized and reemphasized. The first is in the area of public order, justice and rule of law. Deficiencies on this front have led to decline in trust in the state’s capacity to protect life and liberty and enforce rights. This in turn has aggravated the tendency to resort to violence and crime to obtain rough and ready justice, promote sectarian interests, or achieve ideological goals. Ensuring access to speedy and efficient justice, protecting rights of citizens, enforcing rule of law, and maintaining public order are all inseparable and they form the bedrock of a civilized society and sound liberal democracy. The deficiencies in this vital area need to be plugged through judicial and police reforms, better citizen participation in governance, transparency and more effective and integrated approach to public order maintenance.

The alacrity with which we constitute various committees and commissions of enquiry is matched only by the inaction on the voluminous reports laboriously produced. Public trust and confidence is shaken by such ritualism and tokenism. We need to institutionalize mechanisms for independent enquiry and mandatory implementation so that public confidence and social cohesion are strengthened. Governance at all levels must ensure orderly justice and peaceful resolution of conflicts in a complex and dynamic society.

The second area is human development through access to good quality education and healthcare to make every citizen productive and fulfilled. Despite our long-standing commitment to these goals, the results are uneven and far from satisfactory. Allocation of resources is undoubtedly inadequate leading to huge unmet demand. Even what is spent not very productive in outcomes. Yet even private sector is not delivering effectively because of systemic inadequacies. We need to reorient public finances in order to direct resources to human development. But even more vitally, we need to redesign our delivery mechanisms in an innovative manner based on past experience and best practices and deploy the nation’s finest talent in these sectors. Most of the nation’s gene pool is wasted because of inadequate and poor quality of school education. Higher education too is not very successful in promoting excellence of producing service providers, leaders, managers and wealth creators, for the future. There are other clear danger signals, which need to be acknowledged and addressed immediately. For instance as public health system has been unsatisfactory and inadequate, private health expenditure, which already accounts for about 80% of total expenditure, is growing (14% per annum) much faster than GDP. The resultant high cost and poor access would seriously undermine our human development and perpetuate misery and poverty. The governance system should be geared to address these fundamental challenges through sensible and innovative policy, effective and competent delivery, and meaningful incentives and accountability mechanisms.

The third broad area is infrastructure and sustainable natural resource development. While the economic aspects of these are well-recognized, the governance challenges are not adequately addressed. For instance, effective land administration is crucial to capital formation in agriculture and soil conservation. Energy plantation and biofuel production would require great administrative innovation and grassroots coordination. Urban management involves much more than resource allocation for infrastructure and poses formidable challenges of governance. Power distribution management through local people’s involvement and ownership in a consumer-friendly way is more a governance issue than an economic or tariff problem. We need to create innovative modes of governance in dealing with many such growing challenges.

Social security is a relatively new and growing area of state activity to which the administrative system must respond with alacrity, sensitivity and efficacy. The recent enactment of the employment guarantee law, the efforts in the pipeline to provide a measure of social security to the unorganized sector workers, and many healthcare risk-pooling mechanisms contemplated require effective delivery system, which can address the special challenges posed in this emerging sector of state activity.

Questions:

1. What are the weaknesses in our Governance system ? Kindly suggest some measures for its overall improvement .

2. In the words of Kofi Annan: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development”. Discuss.

3. Governance is the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. Explain

Source: With inputs from Second Administrative Reforms Commission

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