(Sample Material) Gist of Important Articles from IIPA Journal

Topic: The Challenges of Globalisation for Civil Servants P.R. Ramaswamy

CHALLENGES BEFORE CIVIL SERVANTS

The civil servant being an instrument of the State has to be in the forefront of the efforts to manage globalisation. Structural Adjustment Programmes, SAP originate outside the countries and which are based on the needs of outsiders. They promote the transition from country to town, from agriculture to Industry, from production for household to production for markets, and from domestic trade to international trade. These outward looking approaches dislocate existing live-styles, values and systems of local people. They dismember traditional societies and destroy local institutions besides laying waste productive resources. So an alternative approach based on the Gandhian model of self sufficient communities has to be looked at, to preserve all that is good within societies and absorb the best from outside. Perhaps a re-definition of the Gandhian concept of self-sufficiency in the light of the modern material and physical comforts may be necessary, According to U.R. Rao, President of the Indian Science Congress, “the solution to provide food, economic and health security to meet the growing demands of increasing population with limited with resources, lies in the adoption of a holistic approach for achieving environment friendly, sustainable development.” In this the civil servants have an important role to play because they are the ones who analyse issues and place the options for decision before governments.

The policies of LPG are designed to minimize the role of welfare state by reducing expenditure in many inessential areas and allow market forces to take over. This will increase inequality and has, therefore, to be resisted. According to Raja J. Chelliah, "the state should liberate the industrial economy and concentrate on irrigation, education, health, flood control, environment preservation, railways, roads, bridges, space, defence and power”.
Markets are ruthless and market approach to empowering the people will increase exploitation and oppression of the weak. It will manipulate democracy, curb local initiatives and involvement of people while promoting Individualism Therefore, they have to be regulated by the State as it had been doing even in capitalist economies at the time of the industrial revolution.

Market-centred development and modernisation as an alternative to people-centred development though efficient is capital intensive, urban-centred and not effective in achieving the goals. It monetizes the economy which is welfare neutral, if production and productivity rises and distribution is equitable. All these are achievable without the involvement of markets also. What is required for uplifment or the poor to accelerate the trickle down effect is knowledge intensive local-oriented people-centre participatory development in terms of opportunities for the poor and political structures to enable them to control the resources of the society.

To resist the onslaught of multinationals the challenge before civil servant is, therefore, how to localize globally and globalize locally. They have to initiate decentralisation peoples empowerment through devolution of powers and encourage local self- governing insertions to administer and meet collective or social needs while encouraging markets to meet the individual needs.

Any economy to run efficiently and effectively needs regulations. Success of the system is determined by the relevance, quickness and efficiency with which it is able to enforce the regulations. Planning is essential as long as there is poverty, rising aspirations and paucity of resources. But it needs to be made effective and realistic by the civil servants because they are experienced knowledgeable and neutral.

Civil servants have to rout out corruption because it encourages unfair competition, promotes sloth and reduces quality of life. When full knowledge, large number of buyers and sellers, and identical products are essential to ensure fair competition in markets, to promote fairness in nonmonetary and off market dealings also they have to make their presence felt. Good governance is therefore, essentially linked to economic development and growth. In the new millennium, to be successful in a globalised economy, civil servants have to strike a fine balance between participation vs accountability, competition vs duplication, customers vs citizens, public interests vs market tests and old vs new. Laws and regulation have to be enforced imparially and the weaker sections have to be protected by them because the market mechanism will not take care of them.

In the new millennium of knowledge, the civil servants have to develop specialised knowledge and skills to have insight into various social, political and economic effects of the policy measures being advocated by multilateral agencies, developed countries and MNCs. They have to indigenize policies to suit local needs to overcome national problems. The collapse of the East Asian Tiger Economics and how Malaysia overcame its difficulties in defiance of the Western prescriptions are good examples to emulate. The civil servants have to ingrain the patriotic belief that our problems have to be solved by ourselves in our own way.

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