QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE:

ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACKWRD.

By K Vijyachandran.

On several fronts, Kerala is far ahead of its sister states: in building luxury villas and multi-storied apartments, modern life styles and as a market for consumer durables, in learning new skills, in the export and import of human resources, and on the whole what is normally referred to as quality of life. And, as if by corollary, our middle class babus beat their counterparts in other Indian states, in the art of self pitying and breast beating as well, and constantly complain about the backwardness and quality of our Government.

My intention is not to claim any best governed status for Kerala, nicknamed as God's own country. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to examine the variety of diagnosis of poor quality governance and remedies suggested by numerous management experts, retired bureaucrats, technocrats, political leaders, ministers and other luminaries. Government Secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram comes out as the villain, in most diagnosis, and the veteran communist from my district, late Comrade R Sugathan had seen burning down the royal edifice, where it is housed, as the only remedy. That was a too severe a view for most revolutionaries and our present Chief Minister, hailing from this very same district, has considerably diluted this earlier diagnosis of his deceased comrade: In his view, thirty percent of the secretariat employees are good, conscientious workers: and, this sounds to be a fairly good estimates if we go by the support base of CPI(M) factions among secretariat staff.

Nearly a decade ago, Nayanar had tried out punching, a day of casual leave for three days of late punching, movement registers etc, for disciplining the secretariat staff. His successor, AK Antony would have loved to continue the practice. However, Oomman Chandy seems to count less on disciplining or commitment of employees, and his response to the diagnosis by his successor was rather instinctive: In his view political directives were the major determinant of quality in governance. And that reminds one of the wisdom words of V Ramachandran: Stand of our politicians depends entirely on where they sit! Ironically, his was a life dedicated to administrative reforms and he continues on his life mission, as the most active member of the Administrative Reforms Commission of GOI.

I, myself, had three occasions, to watch from very close quarters, how Government really functions under the Kerala environ. My experience is limited to the three LDF Governments of Nayanar. But, that should matter very little: Election platforms of LDF and UDF are written in different political dialects, but when translated into practice they make little difference. And it matters very little whether injustices and inefficiencies are delivered in a disciplined or indisciplined manner. The first Nayanar Ministry took me as the Member Secretary of Kerala State Committee on Science and Technology (KSCST) with Dr. KI Vasu as Chairman and as the Chief of the Industries Division in the State Planning Board, headed by the late Thavaraj. With VS ruling from AKG Centre and Nayanar sitting in Govt. Secretariat, there was very little left for us to dream, plan, discuss or deliberate. Nevertheless, we had often shared our dreams with EMS, whose greatness found all the time needed for evaluating our disillusions. Thavaraj, who was the Professor of Financial Administration in IIPA and a dedicated communist intellectual, was frustrated in no time, and I remember his remarks even today: Kerala badly needs a thorough administrative reform. That was in 1982, and the situation has only worsened, despite the massive people's planning movement of the third Nayanar ministry.

My first engagement was however extremely short lived, because the first Nayanar ministry had collapsed within in less than two years. Nevertheless, a few observations on the status of S&T administration in Kerala today will be relevant, in the backdrop of the pioneering efforts put in by our S&T Committee, quarter century ago. The credit for establishing half a dozen autonomous S&T organistions in Kerala, as centers of excellence, including the Center for Development Studies, goes to the Achutha Menon ministry. KSCST was set up during mid seventies, as part of the S&T policy of Central Government, and in 1981 our committee took the initiative to transform it into a focal point for the effective administration of these state level centers of excellence. This policy initiative was well appreciated by the S&T Department of Central Government: It helped in attracting scientific luminaries like Dr. Iyengar, Dr. Sreenivasan, Dr. Valiathan and others to head this state level S&T organization. This new culture, however, was short-lived and reputed scientists are seen leaving their positions in disgust due to political bungling. Bureaucratic pettiness is the order of the day and an under-secretary deputed from the Secretariat calls the shots today at Sastra Bhavan, and he is dictated on by political commissars.

I had witnessed the evolution of this commissar system in state administration, during my second term with the LDF Government, which was nearly co-terminus with the second Nayanar ministry: As the Secretary for Public Enterprises Department, I was reporting to the Chief Minister and at the same time rendering advisory services to the Minister for Industries. Nayanar was a perfect Chief Minister but for the occasional problems precipitated by my bureaucratic insistence to deal with the party, only through proper channels. Gowri Amma never had any use for my advice and she had a different role perception for me, as the Secretary for Public Enterprises: As a party member I was supposed to go by her advice, even on professional matters. I ceased to be her advisor in no time, but continued as Secretary for the Department of Public Enterprises despite her strong resistance.

Unwarranted interference by ministers and their personal staff, in the day to day working of field departments and PSUs, is the major reason for wide spread corruption, erosion of accountability and poor quality of governance. Toward the end of the earlier UDF Ministry several steps were initiated for professionalizing PSU management, under the initiatives of the then Chief Secretary, V Ramachandran. This was a healthy response from the Karunakaran Ministry, to the a massive state-wide campaign by the trade unions, against the misuse and mismanagement of PSUs. Second Nayanar Ministry tried to continue these healthy initiatives of its predecessor, and substantially improved the quality of managing state PSUs. In my capacity as the Secretary for Public Enterprises, I had received full support for such initiatives from all concerned, including th Chief Secretaries, PSU managements and TU leaders, despite the displeasure of a section of political leadership. However, all these healthy trends were simply reversed, soon after the next UDF regained power in 1991.

During the four years my Secretaryship in government, I could witness how efforts toward administrative reforms were resisted and even defeated by opportunist politics. Implementation of the district administration act and positioning of elected district panchayats as centres of local government were part of the election platform of LDF in 1987. As I remember, V Ramachandran, with his vast experience and commitment to administrative reforms could produce within three months, a blue print for implementing the Act, as demanded by the political leadership. However it took more than three years for holding elections and installing the district councils. Second Nayanar ministry opted for a mid term elections even before completing four years, and the program for administrative reforms through grass root level democracy could not be given a fair trial. District Councils were disbanded as soon as UDF came back to power in 1991, and then came the three tier panchayati raj of Rajeev Gandhi, which had ensured the continuation of IAS Raj at the district head quarters and State capital. By then, LDF had forgotten its own democratic promises on District Councils, and by the time they came back to power in 1996 the slogan was people's planning and decentralized development. Nobody knows, even today, what is meant by these concepts, despite massive campaigns and public spending. For five years UDF was deceiving the people with its ADB funded Modernization of Government Program. And now, the Government has ordered an expert committee headed by Prof KA Oomman, to research on why reforms fail to develop roots in Kerala soil.

This brief history of reforms is presented for the benefit our leaders, who have started a new debate on employee productivity in Government. Before stressing on productivity there is a need to look at what they produce on the tens of thousands of Govt. files every year. During my third and last tenure in Government, I could organize a private study on file movements in the secretariat, using my privileges as advisor to the Industries Minister. Rehabilitation package for a PSU traversed through more than 70 tables in the secretariat and no decision was taken even after 90 days, despite vigilant file chasing by the concerned PSU on a table to table basis. Why should a file be seen so many times and by so many people? Air travel by employees in field departments and PSUs need to be approved by the parent department in the secretariat and then concurred by finance department. More than half the time spent by ministers and their personal staff is on transfer, promotion and posting of personnel in the field departments or PSUs under them. Maybe, another one-fourth is spent on purchases and contracts which should be left entirely to the field departments or PSUs, through appropriate delegation of powers. And of course, the remaining one-fourth has to be set aside for vigilance cases, the favorite pastime of bureaucrats and political bosses. Over-time and compensation leave are inevitable for finding time to answer the massive doses of assembly questions. And the most important questions related to policy formulation and reviews are left to committees and consultants. The issue is simple: should we not transform the Government secretariat and the Council of Ministers into a body for policy formulation and review in the main, and leave the implementation part to field departments and PSUs, accountable to lower level elected bodies? Centralized policy making and decentralized administration is the only working solution for large organizations. And, we had been struggling to move toward this goal for quite a few decades and then slipping every time.

We are caught up in the proverbial cycle of one step forward and two steps backward, and the sad part is: Our leaders are hardly aware of this reality and refuse to learn from the past. Even as we celebrate the golden jubilee of Modern Kerala, every single minister is seeking original solutions of his own and refuse to see grass root level realities. We have a health minister who believes that announcing surprise checks from house tops will improve the quality of health care delivery. Public statements of electricity minister give the impression that he is the CEO or Chairman of Electricity Board, which has been rendered dysfunctional by successive regimes in the past. Minister for transport believes that KSRTC is a real white elephant and looks at insuring of its buses as an unwarranted luxury. Improvements in water supply and irrigation systems are not the priorities for our minister for water resources: He is a Kerala patriot fighting Tamilnadu on the East and Arabian Sea on the West. Cooperation minister is cocksure of his dialectics that, two negatives could only multiply or divide, leading to very positive results every time: he has commissioned a comrade who had the rare courage to admit his involvement in a spirit scandal to fight cooperative corruption and intends to use corruption in Government to fight corruption in gods own temples. We have a panchayat minister who is keen to bail out the Finance Minister by raising ADB loans, even at the expense of the much needed capacity building in the LSGs under him. Adding a few more Taluks, is seen a priority measure for improving administrative efficiency by the revenue minister and not making revenue and panchayat administrations coterminous with each other.

Revenue department continues to haunt us as a colonial legacy, and serves as the breeding ground for IAS bureaucracy and culture. If we really appreciate the value of trained administrators, only senior IAS cadres with rich experience and seniority should be posted as district level administrators or collectors. Collectorates are seen today as apprentice shops for the IAS cadre. All senior guys retire into the cozy chairs in the secretariat and close to political power, and their numbers keep on increasing. They are busy, sharing the ministers and along with the nexus around them, have perfected the art of vitiating the entire administration in the state, and rendering it ineffective at every level.

Every minister in Kerala has a large contingent of personal staff, two dozen strong with private secretaries, additional secretaries, assistants, clerks, peons, cooks etc etc and they are screened and selected in consultation with the political bosses. Nearly one third of the staff is sponsored by his party's or group's trade union wing in the secretariat, another one third from its NGO front and the remnant directly from party offices. This is the general composition of the personal staff of ministers, irrespective of ideology or group. And as a rule, by the time they settle down, ministers become virtual prisoners of their personal staff, reminiscent of the proverbial idols on donkey backs. I have witnessed this tragedy several times. The three hundred strong invisible contingent of personal staff develop its own agenda and priorities and keep the white elephant called the Council of Ministers in perpetual confusion. Dr. Babu Paul had named the resultant regime as a regime of Chaprazis. Perhaps, a regime of clerks or glorified clerks, could be a more apt characterization.

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