India inherited an administrative framework from the British who ruled India before 1947 for almost two centuries. To govern this huge country they created mainly two branches of bureaucracy, the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Police who were mainly supposed to perpetuate the British rule in India. After Independence these services were rechristened as the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service. 

Thereafter, the bureaucracy has been proliferating by leaps and bounds in the name of various existing departments and other new departments which have been created by the government in the name of extending different services to the citizens. The States have also created and have been expanding the state bureaucracies almost proportionately.    In practice however, these bureaucracies have turned out to highly corrupt and self serving.  It will not be inappropriate to say that these bureaucracies have corrupted the politicians also. Gone are the idealistic political class of the freedom struggle era. The democratic constitution of India provided for elected government.

These elections would cost a lot of money which must be recovered by the victorious political individuals and parties. So these politicians joined hands with the bureaucracy to misuse power of the government for personal benefits. Needless to say such a system can never made any country great or powerful. In the cosy company of the political masters the executive bureaucracy  became completely complacent and detached from the general public whose requirements have been widely ignored by the successive governments.  

 This apathy and incompetence of the government machinery have for a long time been a subject matter of national debates. And therefore, a fancy term called ” Administrative Reforms” was coined. The departments of personnel all across the country included this fancy phrase. But nobody had a real idea as to what this word administrative reforms means not did they have any clue as to how to implement these so called administrative reforms and what exact reforms were to be implemented.   One of the first ideas that was floated was to increase the salaries of the government servants. The argument was that the government servants are poorly paid and therefore they indulged in corruption. An increased salary would  discourage the government officials to refrain from corrupt practices that resulted in the loss to the exchequer, reduced the flow of funds to the poor and the needy and led to shabby and expensive developmental projects. But this was not to happen. Year after year new formulae were ingeniously devised by the same set of officials who over a period of time increased their emoluments several fold and yet no semblance of integrity was achieved in the government. The ballooning cost of salaries and allowances of the government employees is consuming almost 80% of the resources of the central as well as the state governments leaving little money to be spent on social sectors, welfare of the poorer sections, infrastructure and development projects, research, science and technology as well as the military requirements of this vast nation surrounded by hostile neighbours.    Some cosmetic ideas like training etc. were  thrown up  in the name of administrative reforms. These trainings have done nothing to change the mindset of the government officials, have become a paid holiday and picnic for these employees and ultimately further drain on the poor tax payers’ money. These training have done nothing to create a sense of national pride and commitment for this glorious country. At best these trainings have been used in the most frivolous manner by all concerned.  

 Another idea of administrative reforms was to take away the powers of the senior bureaucrats by privatising the most profitable public companies that could have been otherwise a great source of revenue for the government. In the name of  structural reforms in the economy, mindless privatisation has been carried out by the administratively reformed government. Such unpatriotic acts of the elite can never make a country great or strong. Such selfish machinery can never make India a global power. We have to think of a totally out of the box solution to make the administration effective which is committed to serve the people of this country at large and harness the combined energy of the country’s citizens to achieve the goal of becoming a prosperous and powerful nation. One such idea can be a jury system of administration whereby important decisions are not taken by individuals or a committee of people having vested interests working together  but under an authority of competent, selfless and independent individuals from various  walks of the society who would assist the authorities as well as supervise them to arrive at the best judgements and solutions. This may sound difficult to achieve in a country facing acute shortage of morality and character. Indeed it is difficult. But  we ought to find a way for transparent and honest decision making that would utilise our resources for nation building and making India strong.