Priority 2009: Reform vs. Red Tape
Posted : May 28, 2009 at 5:13 pm [IST]
We have a new government of reputed economist for the second term. He appears to be more confident this time. Many conclude that the unwarranted delay in cabinet selection was because Manmohan wished his ideas incorporated. Again many doubt if the new cabinet is having any signature of Manmohan. The Gandhi (Indira/Feroze) family appointed him first as prime minister in 2004. It was new model of governance. I assume the constitution makers would never have thought of this way of making prime minister. However, I was happy then and prayed that the model worked. It failed miserably in implementing the development projects for the people but its populist policies, be it NREGA or loan waivers made it win the election 2009. Now the media is full of the hopes for the second waves of major reforms for economy. Industry is ready to go ahead for 10% GDP.
I doubt if the government will dare to take up reforms related to labour or opening of retail sector. I wish the respected prime minister focus to get rid of red tape. It can make a significant difference. It will improve efficiency and take the country on high growth path without much opposition. Can the prime minister and his team go for this at least? Will Rahul, the icon of young India and his brigade that is getting so much of publicity in print as well as on small screens today do something about this?
Every citizen must have faced the agony of red tape in his life, be it for getting a passport or filing an FIR. I thought instead of my own experience I quote from a celebrity to make its seriousness realized better. NR Narayan Murthy has narrated some in his new book- ‘Better India, Better World’. Will the Manmohan government see that Mr.Murthy and his friends in industry get their impressions changed?
” It took more than a year for the central government to release the grant of Rs 100 crore announced by the finance minister for the IISc during the 2005 budget speech. Can the gap between announcement and the delivery be bridged?
” A well-known professor of the history of science and technology from the USA wants to write the story of an Indian Institute of Technology but his request for a visa gets turned down, until some well meaning people in the government intervene after a delay of 18 months. Why can’t the prime minister or MEA take exemplary actions against the officer responsible?
” One of the best private medical institutes in a southern state is denied permission to start postgraduate programmes for 18 years while all sorts dubious medical college in the same state were given permission to do the same. Why the HRD minister be made accountable for such discrimination?
” The director of an IIM attends a conference in China at the invitation of the president of a well-known university there. He invites the president in a reciprocal gesture to visit his IIM. The government refuses to clear the invitation. What is so secret about IIM?
” Five well-known non-resident Indians in the USA decide to use their stocks to create a corpus of Rs 5000 crore in the late nineties to start four institutes of bio- and information technology. They approach the University of California, Berkley, the finest public university in the world, for collaboration, and get their consent in two months. Then, they apply to the government of India. Despite the request to GOI by some of us to expedite the approval, to date, there has been no reply. In the meanwhile, the stocks which traded at around $300 in 1996 have reached rock bottom numbers and these NRIs are no longer in a position to support this initiative. The country has lost a golden opportunity. How can a lapse such as this get overlooked by the prime minister?
” The condition of hostels in most IITs is totally at variance with our call to excellence in education at these places. A successful and generous alumnus uses his own money to build a decent hostel with all modern amenities at his alma mater, a well-known IIT. The then minister and his bureaucrats ask the director of the IIT endless questions on why this hostel construction was permitted. Why can’t the bureaucrat be sacked or at least transferred?
P. V. Indiresan, the former director of IIT, Madras has narrated a similar story in his column in ‘Hindu Businessline’.
Thirty years ago, when I was Director at IIT Madras, we had the second largest computer system in the country. Our professors used it in two shifts for the students and faculty and the remaining night shift it was lent to industry. That was very profitable earning nearly Rs 2 crore a year, adding about 15-20 per cent to the income of the Institute. Unfortunately, all that income was captured by the Finance Ministry. I had a difficult fight to get a bare Rs 20 lakh to buy a minicomputer for student training. I tried in vain for the use of the funds we were contributing to the government. However, the officials were adamant. All incomes must go to the Consolidated Fund; they will decide what we require and give us a budget accordingly. In disgust, I stopped lending the computer. The government lost a couple of crores a year, worth twenty times more these days. They were not bothered. I give this as an example of how the Consolidated Fund operates. It removes local initiative. It prevents local experimentation. It causes loss of income. It places enormous power in the hands of Finance Ministry officials who may or may not be the best judges of the situation.
Let the prime minister see that such lapses don’t go unnoticed. He as well as the first family must keep themselves accessible to hear these problems or have agencies to let them know about such failures that build or damage a country’s image. We may be wrong in expecting the reforms related to education, financial business or labour that require legislations and support from the MPs. But all the above issues raised by the two well known Indians and many similar ones the aam aadami faces every day can and must be taken care of by the new government and its minister. If it can’t, Manmohan must not promise the good governance as his priority number one.
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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