• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Right-sizing the bureaucracy -- It's back to the barracks

C. K. G. Nair

WHEN, a few months ago, India Today carried a lead article on Indian babudom, many observers expected some path-breaking decisions on the most powerful interest group in the country. The changes, it was hoped, would make the babus stay in their office ro oms, in the required numbers, and do some real work. Away from the sunny spots out in the open, as the article's accompanying photographs amply demonstrated. However, as time passed and seasons changed, the babus have only shifted their bases from the su nny spots to the shade of the sprawling lawns around the various Bhavans in Lutyen's Delhi.

Since the early 1990s, with the economic reforms, there has been a renewed thinking on the need for right-sizing the government's administrative apparatus. This was reiterated in the Fifth Central Pay Commission (FPC) Report.

The Report, while emphasising the need to introduce professionalism in administration and revamp the salary structure, pointed out the impossibility of raising beyond a limit the pay and perks for the entire reserve army of employees, bloated over decade s of over-recruitment. But the limit was stretched as the reserve army managed to get its pound of flesh by political sagacity, cajoling and intimidation.

The government of the day, succumbing to these pressures, perhaps thought that by paying the babus something more they could be induced to contribute a bit more to nation-building. After all, it has wisely been said that for peanuts, one will only get mo nkeys. Perhaps conveniently forgetting that the causality runs the other way as well. Anyway, the expectation went awry, as the India Today photographs and other media reports clearly demonstrated.

The expectations from the bureaucracy, however, continue as various sub-sets of interest groups still roam the corridors of power seeking more benefits of different hues and colours. In a year or two from now, the demand for the Sixth Pay Commission (SPC ) will reverberate through the corridors, echoing the same saga of pay, perks and promotions. Before that it is time to rethink, again, and define certain postulates and truisms clearly, rather than take sides based on attachments, partial information an d misinformation.

Employees are double-edged swords. They can cut for or against, depending on how committed they are to the organisation and their work. The moment they are declared a liability -- explicitly or tacitly -- the sword could turn against the em ployer.

No organisation can implement any reforms that hurt the size and share of the interest groups which are affected by reform proposals. Employees are not Kalidasas to cut the branch on which they are comfortably perched. They may not even be the Kalidasas who could write Shakuntalams! The interest groups are quick to understand even subtle moves that affect their prospects, even in the remote future. Attempts at reform, particularly by right-sizing (always interpreted as down-sizing by interest groups) ba sically lead to some renaming, defeating the very purpose of reforms.

Employees do have a right to ask for legitimate benefits. It is not their fault if somebody recruits them without sufficient work for them to do. But rights have to be matched with duties and responsibilities. Which are not enough to be productively shar ed by a four million-strong work force (of the Central government alone, with similar stories of surplus flab with the other layers of governments, local bodies and many parastatal entities). Productive seats are limited, particularly at a time of the sh rinking functions of the sovereign.

So we come to the real reason. For recruitment to match a certain, heightened level of assumed activities of the state -- where everything was to be planned and executed by the babus -- perhaps twenty five per cent of the productive populatio n would be needed to do that. (So went the empire-building of the Welfare State (a la Upamanyu Chatterjee). The growth would, of course, start shrinking because there would soon be nothing left in the Welfare State's coffers.

With growing bureaucracy grew specialised cities. In some places huge sub-cities, and at others full satellite cities, with vast stretches of prime land, buildings, infrastructure, water, power and other facilities. In Delhi, the sprawling North and Sout h Blocks, which once housed almost the entire central Secretariat, became too small -- even with all the attached constructions -- to house the dozen or more Bhavans and other complexes that had to be located farther away. Many unlucky of fices have to still crowd up in busy commercial areas, far away from the satellite cities.

It is neither possible nor desirable to wish away the reserve army. They are for real, too strong, too well-entrenched. They know the terrain thoroughly because they make the proposals and rules for their pay, perks and promotions. And continued growth.

But they have been shown the red card. Told they are now a liability on the field. Now if they are allowed to rewrite the rules of the game they will cut against the system, scuttling reforms and restructuring, and come out with marginal solutions that m ay not be even implemented.

There is only one real solution. Demobilise. Treat the empire-building of the past as a necessity of that time and situation. Just as, during a war every nation mobilises additional military strength, but demobilises after the war. And order the core, pe rmanent army back to the barracks.

For the Central Government policy-making bodies (other than field agencies), the North and South Blocks and one or two more Bhavans are enough to accommodate the Home, Finance, Defence, External Affairs and Infrastructure (economic and social infrastruct ure with various departments) ministries. These are the only ministries really needed, with some reorganisation of policy-making functions.

Essential field/utility agencies (telecom, power, P&T, and so on) research institutions and regulatory authorities can be made autonomous, in the true sense of the term, and left to do their work by earning through service charges, wherever possible, gra dually.

While demobilising, employees should not be sent home empty-handed. Give them the promise of life-long pay, without work anyway. Continue to pay what each one earns today. With dearness allowance. And pension on reaching retirement age. All this by just sitting at home. What a welfare State! Still, the system will be better off in terms of the saved perks, power, real estate, utilities, and a host of other expenses. And the country and the people will be free from many of those schemes prepared by the u nder-employed to justify their existence. The greatest benefit of the demobilisation, of course, will be freedom from the sword-cutting against the system and further empire-building.

(The author is a former Joint Director, Ministry of Surface Transport.)