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Sinha's bid to downsize govt may not take off

George Iype in New Delhi

When Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha presented the Budget on February 27, he unveiled a 'grandiose' plan: downsize the white elephant called the Government of India that has become too expensive to maintain.

Thus the Prime Minister's Office and the finance ministry are currently at work to fulfil Sinha's budgetary proposal to abolish at least four posts of secretaries in the government by April 1.

It is said to be the modest beginning to reduce bureaucratisation and downsize innumerable administrative departments of excess employees. But resentment is building up in various ministries as the government has begun to shortlist for axing high-profile posts of secretaries, special secretaries, joint secretaries, officers on special duty and advisors.

Soon, the Cabinet Secretary will submit a proposal to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee listing departments that could be merged and secretary level posts that could be abolished.

The central government in Delhi runs one of the biggest bureaucratic set-ups in the world. The government has 38 full-fledged ministries with over 130 departments headed by secretaries who are generally senior Indian Administrative Service officers.

Delhi is home to nearly 140 secretaries and special secretaries, 60 additional secretaries, 260 joint secretaries, 450 persons of the same rank or above serving with various statutory commissions, boards, committees and departments. Added to this number are more than two dozen advisors and officers on special duty each accommodated in various ministries.

Officials say a large number of these posts were created "with political connections."

"Every central minister appoints his favourites as special officers and advisors and provides them with official houses and cars to ensure that his writ runs through the ministry and its departments," an official at the Cabinet Secretariat said.

"Each of these posts costs the government more than Rs 1 million every year. It is the politician-bureaucrat nexus that has resulted in overstaffing in government departments," he told Rediff On The NeT.

During the prime minsitership of Jawaharlal Nehru, there were no officers on special duty in the PMO or any other ministries. But ministers now recklessly appoint retired bureaucrats and political followers as OSDs.

Aiding this political process of bureaucratisation are the various court orders through which committees and judicial commissions spring up every now and then. Last year, a parliamentary report said the world's largest number of judicial commissions, investigation teams and probe committees exist in India. The government spends millions of rupees to man and operate these commissions.

According to S S Bakshi, a retired bureaucrat in Delhi, after the liberalisation of economy, the government's first decision should have been to downsize various departments.

"The Government of India is looking like an inverted pyramid. It is so top-heavy that the implementation of many policy decisions never trickles down to the people," he told Rediff On The NeT.

Bakshi feels it is time the government axed many high-profile secretary level posts, abolished various departments and merged administrative offices with similar functions.

For instance, he says, there is no need for two separate secretaries for the departments of poverty alleviation and urban employment. There is also another department called the rural employment headed by a secretary. "Ideally, the departments of urban and rural employment and poverty alleviation should be merged to be headed by a secretary," Bakshi said.

While the Cabinet Secretary is likely to recommend the merger of these departments, Sinha is keen the downsizing exercise should begin at the finance ministry. Officials said Sinha has given the go-ahead to abolish the post of special secretary, external funds borrowing, under his ministry.

Ironically, the external funds borrowing wing under the department of economic affairs -- again headed by a special secretary -- has been lying vacant for many months now. Though the wing was created during Indira Gandhi's time to look after the country's external fund borrowing programme, it soon became a place to send the sidelined and unwanted bureaucrats.

The prime minister and finance minister are expected to take up the Cabinet Secretary's proposal for the modest downsizing of the government after March 18 when Parliament goes in for a month-long recess.

But officials are sceptical that the government move to abolish the bureaucratic fat will take off on a large scale given the opposition to it from senior bureaucrats and their favourite ministers.

"The government would abolish a few posts now as a symbolic gesture. It is difficult for the government to eliminate senior secretarial positions as they have political backing," an official said.

Knowing well that downsizing the government is not easy, Sinha has promised to set up an Expenditure Reforms Committee. But downsizing is unlikely to begin in right earnest soon.

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