By Aman Sharma, ET Bureau
(Courtesy: Economic
Times, 2 May 2013)
Three years
ago, a survey done by the government among its civil servants showed that every
third bureaucrat felt the system was not fair or transparent, while half of
them cited working under strong external pressures. Familiar themes were delved
into on April 21, Civil
Services Day, as India's top bureaucrats and ministers came
together to debate whether they were hindering India's economic growth and
progress.
There's a
growing feeling in international quarters that they are. Last year, the Hong
Kong based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy ranked the Indian bureaucracy
as the worst in Asia, saying its officials are rarely held accountable
and were the root cause of the mistrust felt by companies towards the
government.
In February,
Vittorio Colao, global CEO of Vodafone Group, which is locked in a $2-billion
tax dispute with India, termed its bureaucracy "damaging" to the
country. It was in this backdrop that senior bureaucrats (Ajit Seth, Pulok
Chatterji, and secretaries from all major ministries) and ministers (Salman
Khurshid, Kapil Sibal,
Jairam Ramesh and V Narayanaswamy) sat down last month to outline problems and
suggest solutions. ET plugged into their conversations to identify the five
major fix-it issues; subsequently, we tapped Naresh
Chandra, former cabinet
secretary and one of India's most prominent bureaucrats, on how
these could be fixed.
Reduce Subjectivity in the
Appraisal Process
A greater
weightage is given to subjective factors than objective in the performance
appraisal, from which promotions and postings flow. The current
system assigns 60% weightage to personal attributes and functional competency
(a subjective assessment) and just 40% to work output (an objective
assessment). This has created a situation where 90% of bureaucrats were
rated 'outstanding' (scoring 9 on 10) without even having a face-to-face
meeting with the appraiser. "If everyone
is outstanding, no one is," cabinet secretary Ajit Seth
said at the conference. He conceded the current system, which has been there
since 2007, needed an overhaul.
The cabinet
secretariat has drafted a new appraisal process. Drawn up after examining
similar systems in Australia, Malta, New Zealand, and Singapore, it
mirrors the norm in the corporate sector, and links team performance to
individual appraisals. It also gives greater importance to results and
performance: 80% weightage to results, 20% to personal qualities and
functional skills. "The superior must read the whole report of the
junior to judge his performance, reduce subjectivity and keep the grading
loose," says Chandra. The proposal is still being discussed in the
government and no implementation timeline has been set. Unless this system
changes, quips a secretary-level officer, not wanting to be named, our government
will lose every match despite having "11 outstanding centre forwards in
a hockey team".
Personnel Secretary
PK Mishra, at the conference, advocated for a radical system that ensures lower
compensation to incompetent bureaucrats. "In
Brazil, 60% of a government servant's pay depends on competency and only 40% is
fixed," he said. "The concept is that if you do not measure
up to a performance standard, you are paid less. Unless we accept these modern
concepts wholeheartedly, the image of Indian civil services is unlikely to
improve."
But
performance-linked benefits might not go down too well with the Indian
bureaucracy. For example, the Sixth Pay Commission had recommended the
introduction of a new performance-based pecuniary benefit for Central
Government employees, over and above their regular salary.
Employees
would be eligible for variable pay only if their department achieved 70% of its
targets. Most government departments are yet to implement it. According to
Chandra, variable pay might not work in the bureaucracy. "It will become a
scenario of reward hunting, like the ills plaguing the performance-appraisal
system," he says.
Fixed Tenures for All
Bureaucrats
At the
conference, Mrutyunjay Sarangi, Secretary, Labour and Employment, caused a stir
when he said that, in the states, for every
officer who refuses to sign a file due to political pressure, there are 10 others
willing to do that job. Foreign Minister Salman
Khurshid admitted to the concept of a "committed
bureaucracy" in certain states. Civil servants were aligned to political
parties, leading to a spate of transfers and hounding out of bureaucrats
following a change in political dispensation.
Chandra told
ET the problem was endemic in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where
chief ministers have failed to draw a distinction between "political
direction and political interference". He suggests a fixed tenure for
civil servants at all levels. "The Centre must ensure that all states make
public the reasons if a bureaucrat is transferred within three months of a
posting," says Chandra.
A proposal to
have a fixed tenure at all levels will have to be cleared by the Cabinet. In
2006, the Cabinet had cleared a fixed tenure of two years for defence
secretary, home secretary, cabinet
secretary, and chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research
& Analysis Wing. Likewise, the Supreme Court had fixed a two year tenure
for CBI director.
Sr Bureaucrats should Lead in
Innovation...
Addressing the
conference, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh asked bureaucrats to think "out of the box" and use
technology more to deliver public services and improve governance. Later in the
day, his principal secretary and arguably the country's most powerful
bureaucrat, Pulok Chatterji, said bureaucrats failed to innovate "as
they know, in the government, no one will question them if they stick to the
status quo".
Chandra told
ET the Indian bureaucracy
is a classic case of "homeostasis": junior- and midlevel bureaucrats
always look for a precedent in decision-making because they fear boldness could
lead to harassment later. It's why, he adds, the lead has to come from senior
bureaucrats, both in the way they deal with officials below them and political
masters. "The concept of flexibility and innovation should first come at
the level of senior bureaucrats who are leading the ministries and only then
will it percolate down the system," he says.
According to
Chandra, this has to be buttressed by legal protection for decisions taken by
bureaucrats while in service. Towards this end, the government is working to
amend the Prevention of Corruption Act, and the proposal is pending before the
Cabinet.
Inter-departmental
Collaboration
At the
conference, Chatterji said that while this government had done reasonably well
on the policy front, it fell short on implementation and delivery because of an
absence of teamwork; they were, too often, working in silos. "We should
learn teamwork from a corporate
governance (point of view) and not always look at problems from the
narrow perspective of each department," he said.
According to
Chandra, this is partly a construct of India's governance structure, which has
too many points of reference, and old and elaborate procedures. "Our
ministries are highly fragmented," he says. "We have nearly five
times the number of ministries than the US. The work supposed to be done by a
single ministry in the US is done by six here. Everything is not teamwork
here."
Even in
collaboration with other parts of the government, Chandra adds, senior
bureaucrats need to take the lead. "We
should learn from E Sreedharan and take lead from how the
government chose to build Delhi Metro by seamless cooperation between
departments," he says. "If
our departments had worked in silos then, Mr Sreedharan would still be digging
tunnels in Delhi."
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