Sometimes, political rulers go off the tangent, and overboard in their decisions. The latest decision of Delhi Government to reimburse 50 per cent of their power and water bills and to give a servant allowance of Rs 1,250 per month is a classic example of that.
The bureaucrats had made out a case, saying that the ?low salary and financial difficulties in times of rising inflation should be taken care of by the government?. The Chief Minister has justified the decision saying that : ?They (the government officials) work hard so they deserve it. It is for officials of a certain level who are working in the administration. These will be perks for them.? This is not the only perk, the Government employees in Delhi or elsewhere get. Other perks include, free telephone at office, and residence, as well as free mobile phone in some cases, free transport, free housing, free medical facilities, inflation linked salaries. Delhi is the only State in the country to provide extra facilities, to its cream of bureaucrats. Today, it is Delhi, tomorrow it will be every State and every government official, asking for the same perks.
Bureaucracy is supposed to serve the people. But the big question is whether it does?
As per an NGO, the cost of governance of India by the 800 politicians at the Centre, the 6,000 in the states, and the 197 million employees of the Central and State Governments cost the country, about Rs. 1,800 crore per day or Rs. 650,000 crore per year. About 1.87 per cent of Indians govern 1,020 million people! This comes to about US $ 138 billion or nearly 30 per cent of India'sGross Domestic Product (GDP)!
The main objectives, at least on paper, of elected politician in power and Government employees with the Central and State Governments is to administer and govern, and serve the citizens of the country, in the best possible manner.
But the truth is, that even our elected representatives, depend heavily on bureaucracy for governance. The main reason is that politicking takes all the time of the politicians. Their main concern is, not to dispose off the files or to ensure good governance. Their major objective is, to remain in power. So if good governance is there, it is incidental. I know of a case, of a Minister, and a vast majority fall in his category, who would sign whatever was put upto him. If a Minister wants to read everything, that is put up to him, the bureaucrats would make sure, that he is flooded with all irrelevant and low priority matters. One way to demoralise, any Minister is, to bury him under the files, so that, he has no time to apply his mind to the things that really matter. I hasten to add, that there are Ministers, and their number is very small, who cannot be fooled. For a run of the mill politician, the best rule is to keep bureaucracy happy and if they are going to sin, then let them sin against God, not the bureaucracy. The well known truth is that God might and possibly will forgive them but not the bureaucracy.
Delhi Government'sgenerosity, towards its bureaucrats, is going to open, a Pandora'sbox, as there would be, a snow balling demand for more and more perks, from employees working in the other State Governments and Central Government. The perks have been granted without discrimination, so much so, that there is no bar put on the persons, who are involved in corruption and bribery. It is not that Delhi Government and for that any other Government, in our country is a role model of probity , efficiency and integrity. It was a massive mix up and corruption, which led to Delhi Government?s, going in, for privatising the distribution of electricity in the national capital. Similarly, a sting operation showed how much its tax collection department was involved in bribery. It should be nobody'scase, including Delhi Government, that such people deserve any more money, apart from, what they have been doing, in lining up their own pockets.
If India is 83rd most corrupt country in the world and scores 28 out of 100 marks (Transparency International Ranking) , it is due to corrupt and bloated bureaucracy. No bureaucracy, ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Or cuts down its own perks. Government facilities once given, never disappear. Actually, a government department, is the nearest thing, to an eternal life, we can see on this earth. While there can be no objection to giving incentives and recognition, based on performance, the Governments regrettably, uniformly rewards the workers, and shirkers, corrupt and honest, efficient and inefficient at the same scale. Further, when the Central Government has announced the setting up of a 5th Pay Commission, Delhi Government'saction, amounts to pre empting the Central action, so that what it has done, the pay commission is obliged to do the same for all over the country.
The politics of personality and patronage must give way to a new politics where maximum resources are dedicated to the welfare of the people, rather than spent on an unresponsive and largely inefficient, not concerned with the results and a corrupt bureaucracy.
George Bernard Shaw once said: ?There are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient?. Obviously Delhi does not believe in it.
(The writer is IPS (Retd.) Former Director, CBI, India, Email; [email protected])
