The decision of the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rename the new Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) complex as ‘Seva Teerth’ on February 13, is a major step forward towards genuine quality governance. As part of the Central Vista project, Seva Teerth houses the PMO, National Security Council Secretariat(NSCS) and Cabinet Secretariat. Along with dedicating the new Kartvya Bhavan which houses key ministries, the new office complex has been designed to provide tech-enabled workspace for better inter-ministerial coordination and superior efficiency.
The first Cabinet meeting at Seva Teerth took place on February 24 and the Union Cabinet under PM Modi adopted the ‘Seva Sankalp Resolution’. This resolution signifies citizen centric governance and service to the common citizen. The resolution also indicates a major shift towards paradigm of power in India. All these steps point out to a renewed commitment to change in governance for the greater good of the people. PM Modi understands that the governance in India has still not reached that level where all the citizens are treated equally. The policies and the welfare schemes at times fail to reach the poor and underprivileged.
PM Modi began his first term with the motto of ‘Less Government, More Governance’. This philosophy advocates less intervention of the government in the daily life of a common citizen. Steps like E- governance and Digital India have proved be good success stories. One outstanding success has been the UPI mode of payment pioneered by India and many countries are adopting this mode of cashless transaction. The government also simplified regulations, outdated laws and better grievance redressal mechanism. But the bureaucratic resistance has been a major hurdle in achieving the desired results. Time has now come to upgrade from good governance to quality governance.
Another good example of financial reform was the merger of Public Sector Banks(PSB) between 2017 and 2020, when total number of PSBs were reduced from 27 in 2017 to 12 in 2020. The consolidation of banks brought about stronger and profitable entities. Today, the public sector banks provide as efficient service to the customers as done by the private banks. The reform in India’s governance has to be of similar nature, where each public servant treats citizens as valuable customers and becomes an efficient service provider. Unfortunately, in many government offices, this is still not the case.
In a country of India’s size, scale and diversity, uniformity in governance is always going to be a challenge. This can be understood from an important constitutional duty like Special Intensive Revision(S.I.R.) under Election Commission of India(ECI) taking place in the various states. While the process has undergone smoothly in most of the states, states like West Bengal have posed all possible hindrance in the conduct of the process. It is friction in governance that is likely to make detection and deportation of illegal migrants a challenging task for the government. There are many issues where there is less congruence between the Centre and States, even when it concerns national security. Border management is one such example.
While a lot of reforms have taken place in the last 12 years of PM Modi government, a comprehensive Administrative Reforms have eluded the country. With our federal structure, a lot of reforms in governance at the state level are also needed. Even after so many years, there is far too much disparity in the functioning of the various governments. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) concluded its functioning around the year 2010. Now the time has come to make the structural changes in the administration, particularly at the district and village(Panchayat) level. In addition, a large number of reforms are needed in the administrative services at the centre/state level, military, police, para-military forces, railways etc.
The administrative setup in India is all right for routine functioning but is not tailor made to cater for the future challenges. There is little accountability and even after major reforms in automation, the cases of corruption continue to emerge. The ease of doing business in India still goes through a lot of red tape, both at the Centre and state level. The corporate governance also needs to be tightened to prevent major frauds. PM Modi rightly said that the governance and administration must be prepared to deal with tomorrow(future) rather than today. A country that aspires to be a developed nation needs a dynamic and agile bureaucracy with other organs of the government also striding on the reforms express. Seva Sankalp Resolution from Seva Teerth complex is going to be the harbinger of major administrative reforms in India, with impetus on quality governance.
