Chennai:
Shouldnt the
government, which is vociferous about downsizing in productive public
sector units (PSUs), look at the bloated Indian Administrative Service
(IAS) cadre and prune it?
When this question was posed
at a seminar (Economic and Expenditure Reforms, organised by
Prime Point Foundation Trust, Chennai, recently) to Expenditure
Reforms Commission (ERC) chairman K P Geethakrishnan, himself an IAS
officer earlier, he chose to remain silent.
It is pertinent to note that the Union Public Service Commission still
continues to recruit IAS officials, at a time when recruitment in PSUs
is almost zero. But Geethakrishnan had this to say: "Central and
state secretariats should be manned by officers [read IAS] who can
take decisions fast."
But what he forgot to say is that the delay in taking decisions is due
to the rigid rules and regulations formulated by the generalist IAS
cadre in order to keep everything under their wraps.
Comparing the Indian delegation (mainly of IAS officials) to World
Trade Organisation negotiations with that of the American contingent,
which comprised lawyers, industry experts and accountants, one
participant said IAS officers should give way to professionals and
experts when it comes to important decisions.
"India is rich in human
resources, but they are not productive because of the rigidities in
the form of rules and procedures. If the rigidities are removed people
will automatically become productive; stripping people of their jobs
is not the solution," said a participant. And many tend to forget
that one way of managing expenditure is by increasing revenue.
Earlier, addressing the
gathering which included many trade union representatives,
Geethakrishnan said: "The logic behind ERC is to find out those
activities that could be best to the private sector. And the role of
the government is to concentrate on more important activities like
primary education and healthcare."
"Government expenditure
will not go down, it will only increase. But it will be targeted at
the expenses that would benefit the masses," he said about the
beneficial impact on implementing the recommendations of ERC.
"India might have landed in a debt-trap like several other
South-eastern economies had it not initiated economic reforms in
1990."
Though the foreign exchange
reserve is in a comfortable position now, at the time of reforms
initiation there was only Rs 1,500 crore in it, Geethakrishnan said.
"The rupee would have depreciated several thousand times
vis--vis the dollar."
"A
lot more reforms are to be done, say, in the realms of land holdings
and agriculture. One should remember that 196 items are still outside
the reform measure," he said. Ending on a positive note
Geethakrishnan said American and Japanese economies are coming out of
recession. "This augurs well for the Indian economy."
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