One of the best event managers in his own right, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accomplished a unique feat of making the entire globe acknowledge and appreciate the resplendent power of yoga, which in his own words is something "beyond physical fitness". The maiden International Day of Yoga marking the Summer Solstice has somewhere set forth the trajectory of his government.
Like the entire repository of literature and a living tradition eulogizing and elaborating the meta-physical conundrum of the art and craft of yoga, the motifs and meanings embedded in the Modi Mantras of Effective Governance and Converging Development would have to be duly enunciated.
While, there is no doubt about the inducement of a renewed set of vitality into the system at all levels. The rigour, vigour and candour is amply emphatic. There is hope, ample hope at all layers. However, the larger direction & the exact trajectory of this resounding vitality is either hazy or is masqueraded in the impregnable symbolism something which the ancient masters of yoga used to adopt for giving the art and craft a sacred hallow.
However, the murky mundane world of relentless public mind which is toiling beyond reproach, needs the very Modi mojo for understanding the unfurling of the same, something which is increasingly muddled by bureaucratic vision of protecting absolute self-service & values of safeguarding the coterie for perpetual survival.
Custodianship
Take the case in point of HRIDAY, a well meaning scheme with a well christened acronym (duly laying the preamble & spirit to resurrect the sanctum sanctorum - hriday - of the heritage cities)under the auspices of Ministry of Urban Development to develop and augment the heritage precincts of some of the ancient cities of India, duly taking account a major segment of the sapt-puris which every Indian cherishes & reiterates in his morning prayers.
The custodians of public money, morale and mindspace, the public servants are probably not meant or mandated to keep these very tenets around their nearby vicinity, specially in the workplace. Despite serving a careerist service, they are probably not meant to design or write any of the scheme documents despite having mugged, internalized and reproduced some of the finest essays and prose concerning anything or everything under the sun in their striving to get qualified as a public servant. Like every poor journalist, why is a bureaucrat not open to take credit of his ID to every scheme he oversees and designs. If a daring resource starved scribe can own his work, why can't a well greased and duly protected bureaucrat?
They need the assistance of an international consulting firm (KPMG in HRIDAY's case), to do the structuring of the scheme implementation. Doesn't National Institute of Urban Affairs who claims to be Promoting Integrated Solutions for Urban India have the wherewithal to construct a cogent scheme design in due consultation with the careerist bureaucrats at whose beck and call the entire country starts and stops.
Probably, introducing a global name obliterates them of their accountability or responsibility, in case the desired results are not accomplished. Incidentally, none of this goes into their RR or ER Sheets maintained by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Shouldn't a bureaucrat be held accountable for the entire scheme/project which he/she has handled by being at the helm of affairs? What better start than making an entry of the same in his/her RR/ER Sheet?
On a lighter note, I have never been able to understand the invocation of the additional burden of handling "Public Grievances" by this very Private Ministry handling the affairs of India's most privileged lot - the sahibs. Shouldn't we be having an entirely separate and focused ministry to handle the Public Grievances across the spectrum?
They would find it amply justifiable to spend almost 3 quarters in these bureaucratic shenanigans (something which they have been living off, day in and day out) and would then give less than a quarter to the another set of consultants/contractors to give in to their diktats of accomplishing their public objectives, come what may.
A simple analysis of almost all projects would bring about this reality whereby the mandarins consumed the majority of the bandwidth and gave only a short window for the performers to perform.
This corruption of conscience leads to ample corruption in design which has no way but to inevitably lead to the corruption in action.
There are innumerable glaring examples of the same. During the last investment cycle for Braj, the VC of Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority pushed for a Railway Overbridge over a meter guage line which addresses to a simple 4 wagon train thrice a day joining Mathura with Vrindavan at a whopping expense of Rs 23 crore. A dusting of the old closets revealed that there was an approved proposal of meeting out the same requirement through a meagre investment of Rs 60 lakhs by deploying a railway barrier.
The bureaucracy has to move beyond acting only as custodians of power and pelf. They need to re-assume their rightful place by being the real custodians of public interest and not just the political interest of the day as the latter lies duly in the former.
Continuity
At great public expense, a permanent bureaucracy was created to ensure the continuity of administration both of the foundational law and order and that of aspirational multipronged development of its peoples and the associated landmass in sync with the trends of the day. Interestingly, this very bureaucracy shirks away from the very notion of continuity either giving it a political color or an intellectual overtone replete with technical convolution.
A significant section of the HRIDAY scheme draws from the JNNURM scheme whereby a similar set of consultants were hired and contractors were commissioned. None of the officials concerned with the HRIDAY project even want to have a mention of JNNURM, even in the most closed chambers beyond pressing political buzz. Their libraries also seem to be out of bounds for reference to the past material which they are generally privy of.
They seem to be infallible lords who just don't want to learn from the past accomplishments, mistakes, inefficiencies or designs.
A case in point is the Vrindavan Parikrama Marg, which was designed and developed with great fan-fare and with immense public expense. Any visitor can get repelled by the sorry state of affairs now. None of the investment made is of any public use, lest the rag pickers and iron-railing welders who can make a better use of it. Interestingly, there is no hue and cry or concern over the investigation into the reasons for its colossal failure. The new set of bureaucrats want to give it a maiden try, gambling all over again the public money even without accentuating a public audit. The World Bank Grant for the Braj region totaling a whopping Rs 441 Crore, too has given a nod for this irresponsible, unaccountable experiment, without performing a due developmental audit for the same. The Principal Secretary, Tourism Government of Uttar Pradesh, an ever sensitive and hard working official, when submitted these facts in a review meeting at Mathura, got disturbed by this very mention, as if he was personally responsible for the old mess and would get into some trouble over this. But his strong propensity to defend his institution's infallibility, made him abuse the powers and authority vested in him. On a similar note, the World Bank is happy funding the resurrection of some 12 odd Kunds in the Braj region onto which a significant public money has already been spent upon in the last decade, without any impact. You tend to throw away a significant public money out of this irresponsible and unaccountable developmental design.
The bureaucratic machinery doesn't want to make use of the huge material created at great public expense and that's the reason, they don't think about storing it safely in the very first place to create a ready reference.
They tend to operate in a scheme by scheme mode as if they have had been hired for that alone.
A comprehensive tourism master plan was created for the Braj region very recently. Without giving it a chance for reference or audience, the World Bank has mandated for the creation of yet another plan from scratch. This is the reality of the spending of the tax payers money.
What about the creation of a section on the OPEN DATA portal (http://data.gov.in) of GoI whereby it's mandated to push in all the material which is generated out of public expense under various schemes?
What about empowering the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and its various offices from a posto-facto to a pre-emptive audit? Creation of a project registry and doing a project audit on top of it, would prevent the undue duplication and repetition of project work out of public exchequer which is interestingly ever widening on the injunctions and recommendations of the very same bureaucracy.
Convergence
A simple graph analysis of the Civil List of the officials of the Indian Administrative Services would show that they get an ample opportunity to expose themselves of the myriad domains of governance. They take ample pride in their being generalists who can stitch together the various specializations when called upon. Well, a very little of it is actually found in practice.
Take the interesting case of Mathura which is currently endowed with a plethora of schemes and funds. There is a World Bank supported Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project for the Braj region which is steered through by the Vice-Chairperson of Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority (MVDA); there is HRIDAY which ideally has to be steered through by the Executive Officer of the Mathura Nagar Palika but has been taken over by an ever enthusiastic Chief Development Officer, who claims himself to be a task master who doesn't believe in litigation.
Both the schemes are being run in ample silos with little coordination or convergence. There is a great overlap on the project proposals and perspectives. Different consultants have been deputed who are working as if they would be deploying their designs in different universes.
Epilogue
Politicians have become accountable to the public by way of extreme competition of vote & questioning by an enlightened electorate. But the entire bureaucracy is still shrouded in the colonial legacy & luster of infallibility, suzerainty, convoluted accountability and interestingly a lifetime impregnable constitutional asylum. What more a public servant can want?
There is a need to further the accountability and responsibility of these back room boys who continue the imperialistic order by way of their mutual scratching. The opening statement of the newly sworned in Chief Vigilance Commissioner that he would protect the honest bureaucrats is probably an error in judgement. Rather than making a public commitment that he would not spare dis-honest bureaucrats, he expressed his commitment to his very coterie.
The learned and ever vigilant Prime Minister would certainly be aware and sensitized to the grave challenges he faces after his honeymoon period. His personal vitality might have reinvigorated some energy into the ever subservient bureaucracy which might be towing his line on the surface of it, but for underlying values and grand visions he would certainly fall back upon his organic roots which have catapulted him to this level.
Presumably the second iron man in the modern history of India, would somewhere initiate the process of galvanizing the bureaucracy with the 3Cs of Custodianship; Continuity & Convergence for creating a lasting impact on the Indian Governance in the era after Nehru, starting this maiden international yoga day.
Like the entire repository of literature and a living tradition eulogizing and elaborating the meta-physical conundrum of the art and craft of yoga, the motifs and meanings embedded in the Modi Mantras of Effective Governance and Converging Development would have to be duly enunciated.
While, there is no doubt about the inducement of a renewed set of vitality into the system at all levels. The rigour, vigour and candour is amply emphatic. There is hope, ample hope at all layers. However, the larger direction & the exact trajectory of this resounding vitality is either hazy or is masqueraded in the impregnable symbolism something which the ancient masters of yoga used to adopt for giving the art and craft a sacred hallow.
However, the murky mundane world of relentless public mind which is toiling beyond reproach, needs the very Modi mojo for understanding the unfurling of the same, something which is increasingly muddled by bureaucratic vision of protecting absolute self-service & values of safeguarding the coterie for perpetual survival.
Custodianship
Take the case in point of HRIDAY, a well meaning scheme with a well christened acronym (duly laying the preamble & spirit to resurrect the sanctum sanctorum - hriday - of the heritage cities)under the auspices of Ministry of Urban Development to develop and augment the heritage precincts of some of the ancient cities of India, duly taking account a major segment of the sapt-puris which every Indian cherishes & reiterates in his morning prayers.
The custodians of public money, morale and mindspace, the public servants are probably not meant or mandated to keep these very tenets around their nearby vicinity, specially in the workplace. Despite serving a careerist service, they are probably not meant to design or write any of the scheme documents despite having mugged, internalized and reproduced some of the finest essays and prose concerning anything or everything under the sun in their striving to get qualified as a public servant. Like every poor journalist, why is a bureaucrat not open to take credit of his ID to every scheme he oversees and designs. If a daring resource starved scribe can own his work, why can't a well greased and duly protected bureaucrat?
They need the assistance of an international consulting firm (KPMG in HRIDAY's case), to do the structuring of the scheme implementation. Doesn't National Institute of Urban Affairs who claims to be Promoting Integrated Solutions for Urban India have the wherewithal to construct a cogent scheme design in due consultation with the careerist bureaucrats at whose beck and call the entire country starts and stops.
Probably, introducing a global name obliterates them of their accountability or responsibility, in case the desired results are not accomplished. Incidentally, none of this goes into their RR or ER Sheets maintained by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Shouldn't a bureaucrat be held accountable for the entire scheme/project which he/she has handled by being at the helm of affairs? What better start than making an entry of the same in his/her RR/ER Sheet?
On a lighter note, I have never been able to understand the invocation of the additional burden of handling "Public Grievances" by this very Private Ministry handling the affairs of India's most privileged lot - the sahibs. Shouldn't we be having an entirely separate and focused ministry to handle the Public Grievances across the spectrum?
They would find it amply justifiable to spend almost 3 quarters in these bureaucratic shenanigans (something which they have been living off, day in and day out) and would then give less than a quarter to the another set of consultants/contractors to give in to their diktats of accomplishing their public objectives, come what may.
A simple analysis of almost all projects would bring about this reality whereby the mandarins consumed the majority of the bandwidth and gave only a short window for the performers to perform.
This corruption of conscience leads to ample corruption in design which has no way but to inevitably lead to the corruption in action.
There are innumerable glaring examples of the same. During the last investment cycle for Braj, the VC of Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority pushed for a Railway Overbridge over a meter guage line which addresses to a simple 4 wagon train thrice a day joining Mathura with Vrindavan at a whopping expense of Rs 23 crore. A dusting of the old closets revealed that there was an approved proposal of meeting out the same requirement through a meagre investment of Rs 60 lakhs by deploying a railway barrier.
The bureaucracy has to move beyond acting only as custodians of power and pelf. They need to re-assume their rightful place by being the real custodians of public interest and not just the political interest of the day as the latter lies duly in the former.
Continuity
At great public expense, a permanent bureaucracy was created to ensure the continuity of administration both of the foundational law and order and that of aspirational multipronged development of its peoples and the associated landmass in sync with the trends of the day. Interestingly, this very bureaucracy shirks away from the very notion of continuity either giving it a political color or an intellectual overtone replete with technical convolution.
A significant section of the HRIDAY scheme draws from the JNNURM scheme whereby a similar set of consultants were hired and contractors were commissioned. None of the officials concerned with the HRIDAY project even want to have a mention of JNNURM, even in the most closed chambers beyond pressing political buzz. Their libraries also seem to be out of bounds for reference to the past material which they are generally privy of.
They seem to be infallible lords who just don't want to learn from the past accomplishments, mistakes, inefficiencies or designs.
A case in point is the Vrindavan Parikrama Marg, which was designed and developed with great fan-fare and with immense public expense. Any visitor can get repelled by the sorry state of affairs now. None of the investment made is of any public use, lest the rag pickers and iron-railing welders who can make a better use of it. Interestingly, there is no hue and cry or concern over the investigation into the reasons for its colossal failure. The new set of bureaucrats want to give it a maiden try, gambling all over again the public money even without accentuating a public audit. The World Bank Grant for the Braj region totaling a whopping Rs 441 Crore, too has given a nod for this irresponsible, unaccountable experiment, without performing a due developmental audit for the same. The Principal Secretary, Tourism Government of Uttar Pradesh, an ever sensitive and hard working official, when submitted these facts in a review meeting at Mathura, got disturbed by this very mention, as if he was personally responsible for the old mess and would get into some trouble over this. But his strong propensity to defend his institution's infallibility, made him abuse the powers and authority vested in him. On a similar note, the World Bank is happy funding the resurrection of some 12 odd Kunds in the Braj region onto which a significant public money has already been spent upon in the last decade, without any impact. You tend to throw away a significant public money out of this irresponsible and unaccountable developmental design.
The bureaucratic machinery doesn't want to make use of the huge material created at great public expense and that's the reason, they don't think about storing it safely in the very first place to create a ready reference.
They tend to operate in a scheme by scheme mode as if they have had been hired for that alone.
A comprehensive tourism master plan was created for the Braj region very recently. Without giving it a chance for reference or audience, the World Bank has mandated for the creation of yet another plan from scratch. This is the reality of the spending of the tax payers money.
What about the creation of a section on the OPEN DATA portal (http://data.gov.in) of GoI whereby it's mandated to push in all the material which is generated out of public expense under various schemes?
What about empowering the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and its various offices from a posto-facto to a pre-emptive audit? Creation of a project registry and doing a project audit on top of it, would prevent the undue duplication and repetition of project work out of public exchequer which is interestingly ever widening on the injunctions and recommendations of the very same bureaucracy.
Convergence
A simple graph analysis of the Civil List of the officials of the Indian Administrative Services would show that they get an ample opportunity to expose themselves of the myriad domains of governance. They take ample pride in their being generalists who can stitch together the various specializations when called upon. Well, a very little of it is actually found in practice.
Take the interesting case of Mathura which is currently endowed with a plethora of schemes and funds. There is a World Bank supported Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project for the Braj region which is steered through by the Vice-Chairperson of Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority (MVDA); there is HRIDAY which ideally has to be steered through by the Executive Officer of the Mathura Nagar Palika but has been taken over by an ever enthusiastic Chief Development Officer, who claims himself to be a task master who doesn't believe in litigation.
Both the schemes are being run in ample silos with little coordination or convergence. There is a great overlap on the project proposals and perspectives. Different consultants have been deputed who are working as if they would be deploying their designs in different universes.
Epilogue
Politicians have become accountable to the public by way of extreme competition of vote & questioning by an enlightened electorate. But the entire bureaucracy is still shrouded in the colonial legacy & luster of infallibility, suzerainty, convoluted accountability and interestingly a lifetime impregnable constitutional asylum. What more a public servant can want?
There is a need to further the accountability and responsibility of these back room boys who continue the imperialistic order by way of their mutual scratching. The opening statement of the newly sworned in Chief Vigilance Commissioner that he would protect the honest bureaucrats is probably an error in judgement. Rather than making a public commitment that he would not spare dis-honest bureaucrats, he expressed his commitment to his very coterie.
The learned and ever vigilant Prime Minister would certainly be aware and sensitized to the grave challenges he faces after his honeymoon period. His personal vitality might have reinvigorated some energy into the ever subservient bureaucracy which might be towing his line on the surface of it, but for underlying values and grand visions he would certainly fall back upon his organic roots which have catapulted him to this level.
Presumably the second iron man in the modern history of India, would somewhere initiate the process of galvanizing the bureaucracy with the 3Cs of Custodianship; Continuity & Convergence for creating a lasting impact on the Indian Governance in the era after Nehru, starting this maiden international yoga day.
