New
Delhi, 04
July
2004
Mohan
Guruswamy is back with his scathing analysis of things governmental,
security or political. The following piece makes a case for prudent
government reform on a functional basis.
On
July 7 this year the 97th amendment to the Constitution takes
effect. This means from that day on the size of the Council of
Ministers at the Centre and in the States must not exceed 15% of the
numbers in the Lok Sabha or State Legislatures respectively. The
logic underlying this amendment is quite obvious. Cost is not the
issue, for in relation to the overall cost of government,
expenditure on ministers is miniscule. The real problem is that with
unlimited ministerships on offer the destabilization of governments
is made easier. Unfortunately there seems to be little realization
that too many cooks spoil the broth. Who can deny that our
governments have so far only served up a vile and poisonous broth
that has enfeebled the majority and kept the nation impoverished?
Even
the National Committee to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC),
which recommended that the number of ministers “be fixed at the
maximum of 10% of the total strength of the popular House of the
Legislature”, does not seem to have thought this matter through.
But even its recommendation was tweaked a bit to fix the ceiling at
15%, as we seem to have too many overly keen to be of greater
service to the public by becoming ministers.
It
would seem that the only reason why the amendment was whisked
through, and whisked through is the only description for it ––
for it was hardly discussed in the Parliament or in the media, was
to afford political managers some protection against the clamour for
berths in the government. Like good politicians they naturally
expect to come out smelling of roses at the same time! But there
could be an unstated reason as well, which might have to do with the
distribution of wealth. Too many thieves could reduce the individual
take? That and making ministerships too commonplace only devalued
the worth of the jobs.
Whatever
be the reasons for the ceiling, good governance or management
principles seem to have little to do with it. We have 543 MP’s in
the Lok Sabha, which means that we can have up to 81 ministers in
New Delhi. With 787 MP’s in all, that means almost one in nine
MP’s can expect to be a minister. The states have in all 4020
MLA’s; opening up possibilities for about 600 ministerial berths
for 4487 MLA’s and MLC’s. Uttar Pradesh has the biggest
Legislative assembly with 403 MLA’s while Sikkim at the other end
of the spectrum has to make do with just 32 MLA’s or 5 ministers.
Quite
clearly the persons who have applied their minds to this amendment
have not seen government as a responsibility that has to be sensibly
shared and not as a basket of fruits to be distributed. No
organization that is meant to function can be designed on such a
basis. Analogies are seldom entirely appropriate, but you will see
what one has in mind when you consider the absurdity of limiting the
number of functional responsibilities in a company to a function of
the number of workers on the payroll. Management structures and
hierarchies are based on assignment of responsibilities based on a
division of work according to the technical and managerial
specialization of tasks. Thus a company might have heads for the
Production, Marketing, Finance, HRD, Legal and Secretarial, and
Research functions. In small companies just one or two persons may
perform all these functions, while in a large professionally managed
corporation there would be separate or even more heads for
functional areas. But you just cannot link this to the number of
workers. The important thing is that management structures apportion
tasks and responsibilities according to specialization.
Obviously
the management of government is much more complex with an infinitely
larger set of tasks than the biggest corporation, however
professionally managed it may be. But to divide the management of
the State into 39 functional responsibilities, as is the case now,
is to exaggerate that magnitude and complexity. It is as if in an
automobile company making and selling cars, the person responsible
for making gearboxes is at the same level as the persons looking
after the paint shop or procuring accessories. As if this was not
bad enough all these would then be at the same level as the head of
Production or Marketing or Finance. Yet this is how the Cabinet is
organized. There is a minister for Rural Development and a minister
for Panchayati Raj as there are ministers for Irrigation and
Fertilizers, sitting on the same table as the Minister for
Agriculture.
We
know that all agriculture is rural and everything in the rural world
revolves around agriculture and so the case for separating the two
goes straight away. Besides Agriculture is about Water, Fertilizer,
Food distribution, Food Processing, Agro and Rural Industries. And
who has heard of Forests in the urban areas? Thus instead of having
one person responsible for improving the lot of our farmers and
rural folk, we have nine departments headed by nine ministers. They
often work at cross- purposes. Even if the ministers are willing, it
will be almost impossible to make the bureaucratic structures to
march to the same beat. And so if the rural sector continues to
languish, no one is responsible.
This
was not the case fifty years ago. In Jawaharlal Nehru’s first
cabinet there was only one minister for Food and Agriculture. The
only agriculture related function not with this minister was
Irrigation. Gulzarilal Nanda held the portfolio of Planning,
Irrigation and Power. But in those days additional power was
intended primarily from hydel projects and it thus possibly made
sense to have irrigation outside the Food and Agriculture ministry.
Likewise
Transport and Railway was one ministry while it has been broken up
into five areas now –– some of them quite ridiculously small.
Take the Ministry for Civil Aviation. Apart from Air India, Indian
Airlines, Airports Authority of India and the DGCA there is little
to it. The first three are companies with full time managers
supposedly managing them. Since the ministry has little policy to
make, it busies itself micromanaging the companies. And don’t the
ministers for Civil Aviation just love that? Particularly now that
over Rs.20,000 crores worth of aircraft purchases are planned. And
what is the need for a Ministry of Information and Broadcasting when
that means little more than Akashvani and Doordarshan? Mercifully
there is little by way of purchases in I&B, though the previous
incumbent seemed to want to make CAS incumbent on us for more
reasons than apparent.
By
now it should be quite apparent that the 97th amendment is not good
enough as it just does not address the problem. We now need a 98th
amendment that will marginally change Article 74(1) of the
Constitution to read “there will be a Council of Ministers
consisting of the Ministers for Home Affairs, Defence, Foreign
Relations, Agriculture ……” Article 75(1) that makes it
incumbent for the President to appoint Ministers on the advice of
the Prime Minister, remaining as it is then makes the choice of the
ministers entirely his or hers. While we are at it we might want to
look at Article 75(5) afresh and consider the merit of eliminating
the stipulation of getting elected to either houses of Parliament or
legislatures. In this manner we could encourage Prime Ministers and
Chief Ministers to induct professional and competent persons rather
than be limited to professional leaders.
The
new Prime Minister in his first address to the nation said: “I am
convinced that the government, at every level, is today not
adequately equipped and attuned to meet this challenge and meet the
aspirations of the people. To be able to do so we require the reform
of governments and political institutions.” The Chairperson of the
UPA is putting together some sort of an extra governmental, possibly
even an extra constitutional, think tank. May be the subject of a
smaller and more functional government will merit its attention?
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