WORKSHOP ON ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
Statement by Shri Amit Kiran Deb
Chief Secretary
Government of West Bengal
(July 18, 2008)
Of late, Government of West Bengal (GoWB) has taken several initiatives in the areas of poverty alleviation, health-care and administrative reforms and for improving the quality of life of the poor. DFID has been very generously providing development assistance to the State Government since early 1990s in support of the above initiatives. DFID’s programmes have helped GoWB to sustain growth, improve the investment climate in the State and delivery of services to the poor.
Over the last two decades, the administration at the field level has undergone a qualitative change, the volume and dimensions of the functions have grown manifold and with empowerment of the people through the three tier elected PR bodies, the decision making at that level has become extremely complex. The field level functionaries are now finding it difficult to cope with the current situation. It is now felt that the expertise and orientation required to effectively handle the challenges of development administration need to be substantially augmented. The public sector governance is thus the prime focus of State Government’s current agenda. In order to improve the delivery mechanism so far as the poverty alleviation programmes and beneficiary oriented schemes are concerned and to make the administration more transparent, responsive and prompt, several measures for institutional strengthening are being taken. This has become all the more relevant in the context of the prime objective of the 11th Five Year Plan which is to bring about quality change in the life of the people with an inclusive approach to human development.
In January last year, GoWB set up an Expert Committee on Administrative Reforms in order to examine different aspects relating to improvement of governance, better delivery system of services to the citizens and speedier implementation of development schemes. The terms of reference of the Committee include, among others, reorganizing and streamlining the number of departments for achieving greater synergy and coordination, institutionalising a mechanism for regular monitoring and supervising the functioning of the departments and their programmes, suggesting good governance measures that will be citizen centric and formulating a human resource development programme for scientific cadre management.
The Committee after several rounds of discussion with stakeholders has drawn up the draft report which has already been circulated to them for their final comments. A meeting with different political parties is also being organised for obtaining their views.
The draft report has dealt with the issue of restructuring and reorganizing departments of the State Government keeping in view the need for reaching the benefits of development to the people in a faster way at the appropriate level of satisfaction and achieving effective inter-departmental coordination. In our State, a little over 4600 villages have been identified as the most backward ones where special and focused attention should be paid to lift them from the current stage of backwardness. Keeping all these factors in view, the report has suggested a model for reorganising the departments.
Realizing that the size and composition of the basic units of administration like the district, sub-division and block are linked to administrative efficiency and in the context of progressive decentralization of powers and functions of the government to the elected PR bodies, an attempt has been made in the draft report for rationalising the boundaries of these units taking into account factors like geographical area and population. Procedural changes in the functioning of the offices at all levels have also been suggested for making them more effective and citizen-friendly. At the same time institutional arrangements have been proposed for stricter and regular monitoring of the departments’ functioning.
The importance of the application of IT in the domain of public sector governance can never be overemphasized. The State Government has already introduced IT tools in several areas, a State-wide network is already in place and many of the G2C services are being provided through this network. Under the NeGP, the application of IT is going to be massively widened with a view mainly to reaching better services to the people. The draft report has dealt with the perennial problem of fund flow mechanism which is age-old and dilatory. An institutionalised computerised fund-flow mechanism has been suggested which will minimise the time-lag between release of funds by the Finance Department and their utilisation by the implementing units at the grass-roots level. It has also been suggested to progressively ensure computer literacy for all the State Government personnel for which appropriate action in the form of changing the relevant recruitment rules will be necessary.
The report has gone into the issue of human resource development in a comprehensive manner and proposed a system of regular upgradation of the morale and skills of the employees and focused on the need for training interventions not only at the time of entry but also at subsequent phases.
The report appreciates the need and importance of RTI Act and suggested measures to make the administration more transparent and responsive through a sincere application of the Act.
Setting up a Centre of Good Governance on lines proposed by DFID is one of the major recommendations of the Committee. In addition, the report has also suggested a host of sweeping changes in the procedures and practices of the State Government in order to bring about much greater efficiency and speed in disposal of work.
I am confident that the workshop will deliberate fruitfully on the issues covering the entire gamut of administrative reforms which will go a long way in making the functioning of the government more transparent, responsive and effective, bring about a regime of accountability on the part of the public servants and ensure better and faster delivery of services to the people.