Many of us concerned about improving the quality of public service and the level of efficiency And accountability of the public service delivery system in India have become skeptical. We have been witnesses to the helplessness, harassment and neglect of the citizens by a large number of Callous. Insensitive, unaccountable and arrogant officials who are otherwise entrusted with the task of delivery of critical public services to citizens, especially half of which live below poverty line. Diagnostic studies to suggest remedial measures have been conducted again and again and yet again.
MASSIVE EFFORTS made in the last five decades in creating and institutionalizing a large public service delivery system to usher in rapid progress in the fields of education, health care, infrastructural facilities, public distribution system, etc has been an achievement of world- historical dimension. Introduction of Panchayati Raj, Cooperative, etc have been acclaimed as path breaking steps to ensure accountability at the grass-root level. Islington Commission (1912-1915) and Lee Commission (1923-1924) are examples of such effort before Independence. Gopalaswami Aiyanger Committee Report (1951), the Report on Public Administration (1951) by A. D. Gorwala , the Reports of 1953 and 1956 of commission headed by Paul Appleby etc. and the latest recommendations made by Expenditure Reforms Commission (2001), Hota Committee of Civil Service Reforms (2004) have been serious attempts form time to time after Independence. These have suggested measures to brings about reforms with a view to promote equity, empathy, mobility, etc. in the service delivery system. The speed and scale at which these efforts have been carried out is unprecedented not only for our country but also in history of governance. These efforts have been continued and the introduction of Right to Information Act of 2005 is another example of sincere of the Government to bring about transparency and accountability in the public service delivery system.
However, the impregnable inertia of bureaucracy and its proverbial resistance to the suggested measures of reform has driven many well meaning reformers to skeptical resignation, cynical utterances or ritualistic exercises. Re- thinking , re-structuring, re-vamping, re- inventing , paradigm change etc. of governance have lost their contextual significance and citizens today look at them with a sense of disillusionment as crocodile tears. The yawning hiatus, the ever widening gap between the quality of public service the citizens look for and what is actually delivered has led to an almost unbridgeable “credibility gap”. The students of public administration and the agencies concerned to bring about improvement in public service delivery system have to ask themselves a question now. “Haven’t they been too much pre-occupied to reform the present public service delivery system which works pre-dominantly through Governmental orgnisations?” Instead of limiting the reform exercises to address the maladies of state run system, time has perhaps come to consider the alternatives for replacing the existing mechanism and to create viable alternatives structures of break the monopoly of the Government. Government initiatives had their relevance in the 1950s when market sector and civil society were not strong enough to share the burden of providing services in the fields of health, education, infrastructure, etc. But now things have changed. Market sector and civil sector have not only become vibrant but the purchasing power of half of the population has substantially increased to enable them to afford services outside the government sector.
In this context , haven’t we been too much pre-occupied with the “symptoms” of the existing sordid state of affaires , turning blind eye or choosing to look the other way from the “malaise” staring in our eyes? The insensitivity, unaccountability, inefficiency, corruption (which has been euphemistically renamed in some quarters as rent seeking behaviour) etc. are not more than only “symptoms”. They should be seen as abominable features of gangrene – affected decomposed part of the body politic which needs drastic treatment, surgical or otherwise. Gangrene cannot be cured by lavender dew. This is not to say that the baby should be thrown out with the bath water but to create alternative bath tubs for the baby to choose.
Bureaucracy is the prime service provider in our country. Starting from the Indian Civil Services to the lowest paid functionaries, the bureaucracy is supposed to be – (a) merit based , (b) politically neutral , (c) selected through open competition , (d) governed by codified laws, rules, procedures etc. (e) upholding the principles of rule of law, (f) guided by policies laid down in a democratic political process, (g) committed to values and objectives enshrined in Constitution, (h) trained to be ethical, responsive, transparent, empathetic to needs and aspirations of the people, (i) expected to display mobility, commitment and dynamism in their work etc. What went wrong? The colonial rulers often dubbed ‘native’ Indians as “Scoundrels”- unpatriotic, unfaithful, mean unethical, disunited, immoral and therefore “unfit to rule themselves”. It is unfortunate that after almost six decades of Independence a large number of public servants have lent eloquent credentials to such mischievous insinuations and almost proven them to be right.
RELEVANCE OF STATE APPARATUS FOR SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEM
Government continues to play a predominant role in delivering various services to citizens. While the role of Government cannot be denied even today, it was certainly more necessary at the time of Independence. The nation had a huge back- log of poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, illiteracy and poor quality of life. State had to intervene for re- allocation of resources to provide public services and to undo the exploitative nature of the colonial bureaucratic system. The result was citizen-centric programmes which has practically given access now to all citizens to elementary education, primary health care, road connectivity, public distribution system, right to participate in the decision-making process through the Panchayati Raj system and lately even to knowledge connectivity, electronic connectivity and market connectivity. However, with the massive growth in the size of Government machinery, the missionary zeal has faded to a large extent. Although the policies and programmes of the Government continue to be citizen-centric, the almost monopolistic public service delivery system is no more perceived to be citizen-friendly. Owing to monopoly, many public servants have reversed their role from being service providers to becoming “masters”. The concept and phenomenon of meeting the citizens’ needs only through a small number of formally recruited persons deserves to be scraped and surrendered. The monopolistic and restrictive role of the Government in this context must be dismantled. Many of the maladies of the present system like corruption, insensitivity etc. are the “symptoms” of the present system which has outlived its utility and relevance. Hence what is needed is not restructuring of the present delivery system but dismantling it and opening the doors for others.
Undesirable political interference is also corollary and concomitant fall – out of his this phenomenon. Even higher bureaucracy has equally degenerated itself in the same way as the political elite. James Warner Bjorkman metaphorically pointed at the difference between “Babus” (those who stay aloof from political hobnobbing) and “Brokers” (those who connive with unscrupulous politicians) in 1970. It appears that the “Brokers” have now out numbered the Babus. The emergence of the sinister “Private Secretary” culture (comparatively junior officers wielding powers much disproportionate to their seniority) is another grotesque feature which speaks volumes regarding the disfunctioning of the higher civil services. It is interesting to note that these malpractices of “P.S” culture has been underlined in the report of the Hota Committee on civil services reforms of 2004.2 The report also recognizes the trend that even though there are still some upright civil servants, they are getting marginalized in the process of governance. It is as though the Gresham’s law – that the bad money drives the good money out of circulation – has taken over civil services also. Yet, it is to be noted that the crux of the matter is not the unethical behaviour or impropriety on the part of some members of the political and bureaucratic elite, but the malfunctioning is due to more deep-rooted causes. The major cause is that the public service delivery system is not beneficiary driven but driven by an out- dated monopolistic system.
COMPETITION AND CHOICE
One of the major steps to rectify this anomaly could be the introduction of the concepts of choice and competition in service sector- competition among service providers and choice for the beneficiary. Today citizens have to approach the service delivery system at a single interface point and at each of these points some formally recruited official has the duty to provide the desired service. However such officials have the ‘’power’’ to harass the beneficiary too because his accountability is not to the beneficiary but somewhere else where his posting , transfer, promotion, etc. is decided based on a system of internal accountability which is not always fair. Hence the citizen is obliged to tolerate the insensitivity, unfriendliness and arrogance or such officials. If there were more than one windows giving him a choice and if such windows were governed by a system of accountability towards the citizens, then the quality and nature of public service would automatically change.
There are a variety of simple ways to bring about such change. It has again and again been emphasised that the apotheosis of bureaucracy must end3, and the citizen must occupy the centre stage. The Hota Committee has come out with a number of bold and pragmatic suggestions to make civil service citizen-friendly. It has underlined that the Right to Information Act 2002 should be implemented in right earnest and citizen-centres should be set up to build their capability for analyzing and suggesting changes in Government policies. Bench marking the quality of services, involvement of the non- government organisations to bring about sensitivity in civil services are also important recommendations.
EMPOWERMENT OF THE CITIZEN
However, in order to make this happen, there is a need for empowerment of the citizen. Consumer movement and judicial activism have certainly been major developments in this regard. Another very far reaching measure could be ‘’shifting the purse’’ to the hands of the beneficiaries. Money makes the mare go. It has been calculated, for example, that the Government spends nearly Rs. 500 per month per child for primary education. If the beneficiary family is straight away given coupons of that amount with the condition that guardians could use these coupons to have access to primary education service for the children only, then he would automatically become a customer and not only a beneficiary. Government may lay down policy that persons having a certain qualification could run schools as parallels to the Government. Those who choose to work through Government institutions may be allowed to use the infrastructure facilities but they should be obliged to earn their emolument by earning through coupons. The other parallel schools should have freedom to charge fees as they wish and attract the coupons also. But the government school should be there as a bench marking institution for the cost of primary education. Such a system would not only given choice to the citizen but ensure fair competition among the service delivery agencies. It would also bring about the much needed empowerment of the citizens. Various Governments have already introduced this system of delivery of public services through coupons in the field of public distribution system. It has been found that the coupon system is not only citizen-friendly, it has also brought about transparency and checked leakages of subsidized food grains etc. in a substantial way. Such experience is a vary encouraging trend.
The public services can be classified into two categories. One is the non-excludable services i.e. which are to be given as common facilities and which can not be directly related to the individual beneficiary. Road connectivity, measures to check pollution, defence, maintenance of law and order etc., would fall in this category. However there are a wide range of services which are targeted to the individual beneficiary and delivered to him in person. Education, health care, agricultural extension services, must be provided through a delivery system which is based on choice, competition and empowerment of the citizen.
The above mentioned arrangement of coupon-system to empower the needy citizens would be wider in its ambit than the concept of privatisation in which the poor and the disadvantaged would tend to be marginalized owing to the lack of purchasing power. Nearly one third of the citizens of our country would benefit from such a system. For the rest, only choice and free competition in the market economy would be enough. The privatisation of airlines, telephone sector etc., have already shown remarkable efficiency both in terms of cost and customer friendliness. This may be seen and visualised as a system of competitive governance in the field of service delivery.
ACCREDITATION OF SERVICE PROVIDEER
The introduction of ASHA [Accredited Social Health Activist] in the recently launched National Rural Health Mission of the Government of India is a case to this point. Accreditation of service provider is another important feature of this alternative system. The practice of accrediting doctor, lawyer, chartered accountant, etc. already exists in our country. Persons should qualify to deliver services like health care, legal service, etc. and are accredited and enumerated by empowered body like Bar Council, Institution of Chartered Accountants etc. They are as much governed by rules and norms as is the case with persons in the governmental system. Such accreditation system should be more broad and cover more and more services. For example a citizen has to approach a police station today either for his security or to get the criminal punished who caused harm to him. He has no choice but to approach the police station which has territorial jurisdiction. The officials of police station are already small in number to discharge their responsibilities and there is little scope to increase their number due to financial constraints of the government. The police official, after all, is a person selected through the formal procedure of recruitment and is responsible to perform certain duties according to the
Laws and rules clearly laid down. Why can’t there be a system to accredit persons/ organisations with suitable qualifications to perform police functions at various levels.
EFFECTIVE REGULATORY AUTHORITY
Such accredited prosodies could be over seen by a formal State regulatory authority at the appropriate to ensure proper accountability and adherence to the legal provisions. Persons may be encouraged to provide security and other individual linked crime management service in a transparent system with appropriate legal provisions. If this is done, the result would be a choice for the beneficiary to choose from a number of police stations within the definite territory. Then state may make arrangements to give coupons to the poor and disadvantaged category to ensure their access to such a system. However, the non-excludable service in policing like maintenance of law and order would still be given to the Government police station. As per the present criminal administration system only the state has the right to prosecute a criminal. Because of the other burdens and political interference and corrupt practices prevailing in such a monopoly system, the rate of conviction of the criminals has often been a cause of concern. This would substantially improve if individual related excludable criminal matters are handed over to competitive crime management bodied. The engagement of Community police Officers (CPO) as accredited security providers has already been started in Rajasthan. The same would apply even to settlement of civil disputes. The system of pre- judicial arbitration and alternative dispute redressal system is already in place in many countries. Government, therefore ought to become more as a facilitator in accrediting the service providers rather than becoming a service provider.
In the above context, the present incentive structure for delivery of public service would automatically change. Government service would no more be seen as coveted position which gives access to discretionary power giving scope for misappropriation of resources meant for public good. The de-incentivisation of government positions would largely take care of political interference with the collusion of unscrupulous government servant to siphon away funds accumulated in the public exchequer by taxing the hard earned income of the citizens. To that extent, the distortion of democratic politics caused by dishonest politicians who have turned the electoral system into an arena for open and aggressive bid for such power would be curtailed.
Apart form replacing internal accountability of public service by external accountability to the beneficiary, this system would bring about a large scale availability of employment opportunities to millions of young people who are both capable and willing to provide quality service to the citizens. It is indeed a pity that the present system has not only excluded the qualified youth from making meaningful contribution in the field of public service but it has also spreaded a negative culture and eroded the value system and work ethics of the whole nation. Hence, the present system is not only a bottleneck, it is also counter productive and strangles the creative energy or the citizen.
Ensuring fairness in this alternative system would certainly require strong regulatory mechanism. The creations of regulatory authority in telecom sector, power sector, etc. are welcome developments. In the same way, the strengthening of citizen’s access are also necessary conditions for the success of such a system. Once such a system is in place, bench marking of service, performance auditing, sense of urgency, efficient use of resources, growth with equity, etc. will naturally come out. The nation can then be proud of a public service delivery system, which is not only aimed at beneficiary satisfaction but beneficiary delight. The citizen would not only be satisfied as a consumer, he would have the delight, pride and enthusiasm to contribute his best for notion building.
What are the processes available to bring about such a systemic change and put an end to the existing malfunctioning system? Again, the process already exists. At present the well-meaning politician justifies his unscrupulous practice as a compulsion in the present electoral scenario. The civil servants justify their malpractice as a compulsion in the present system. The men in trade and industry look at corrupt practice as an inevitable burden. The youth are angry and frustrated and find themselves helpless and jobless and therefore ready to commit any crime and are available to politicians for a hooliganism. Who would therefore break the ice? There is no doubt that with a small push the old system could collapse like a pack of cards. The over-whelming majority of the population is on the side of change and that the change would come is a clear writing on the wall. A general referendum following an all party consensus in a democratic and patriotic spirit is a good alternative. Otherwise, change is bound to come following an inevitable conflict between the beneficiaries and the aggrieved in the present system. Those engaged in public administration have therefore an urgent task at hand.