Some food for thought
"Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution."
—Vladimir Nabokov (American Novelist, 1899-1977)
Word for the day
Bardolatry (n)
Great or excessive adoration of or reverence for William
Shakespeare
First thought this morning
The incumbent government is inducting 9 professionals into civil
service at joint secretary level. Though the issue of lateral entry of
professional with domain expertise in civil services was being debated for many
decades, it appears to have been now settled. If successful, this will go down
in history of independent India as a watershed reform.
I am not privy to the criteria, if any, that will be used by
successive governments for appointment of professional directly at higher
levels in administrative hierarchy, but I would like to see, inter alia,
the following safeguard being taken:
(a) There should be a
objective qualification criteria for lateral entry of professionals in civil services.
The selection and appointments should be made by UPSC without any political
interference and pressure.
(b) Adequate
safeguard should be applied to make sure that the process does not degenerate
into discretionary political appointments like political advisors/secretaries
and OSDs by ministers.
(c) The tenure of
the lateral appointees must be fixed and posting limited to the departments
falling within their domain of expertise.
(d) The Chief
Secretary must be made accountable for their induction and cooperation by the
legacy civil servants. Former UIDAI chief Nandan Nilekani's experience in this
context could be very useful.
(e) The lateral
appointments should not become matter of lobbying and favoritism just like
directorships in PSU Banks, PSEs and various development Boards and
Corporations.
Chart of the day
Notes
from my Diary
To manage any material change, especially in a large
organization, it is very important to reinforce and embed desired changes in
structures, processes, systems, target setting, and incentives. The change, to
be effective, must presume that people don’t always behave rationally.
Reinforcing mechanism
Many studies have found that for human beings satisfaction
equals perception minus expectation. There is not much evidence to prove that
spending money on public utilities and providing subsidies and incentives
directly motivates people to accept the changes proposed by government.
Sometimes small, unexpected rewards, which improve perception of
voters, could materially enhance their satisfaction. To the contrary, major
cash incentives falling short of expectations may actually lead to poor
perception and dissatisfaction.
It is therefore important that the proposed change passes the
test of "fairness and justice", implying that it should not only be
in the interest of common public, it must be perceived by the public to be so.
Therefore, in implementing any changes that may have wider
socio-economic impact, the politicians responsible for the change managers must
pay great amount of attention to voters' sense of the fairness of the change
process and its intended outcome.
Demonetization, GST, stringent tax compliance enforcement, etc.,
are some changes by the incumbent government that may not have been perceived
to be totally fair and just, causing resentment and dissatisfaction.
To minimize the resentment, BJP has introduced an element of
insecurity and danger in people's perception. Using Pulwama terror attack as
background, a sense of urgency to secure borders, before ensuring
socio-economic well being of people, was thrust upon voters. The perception has
been enhanced through an unexpected airstrike in Pakistan's airspace, giving
voters an immediate sense of security and well being.
Building capabilities
To make any change effective, it is critical that necessary
skills and talent is developed in the target audience.
As governments attempt to drive economy by changing the way
common people behave, they often neglect the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs
that, in turn, drive behavior of people.
Social reforms are therefore equally, or even more, important
than economic reforms for sustainable faster growth.
The sub-par performance of Cleanliness Mission is an important
case in point. The Mission has not been adequately supplemented by behavioral
training to people and capability building for civic authorities. No one in the
country denies the need and importance of cleanliness; yet we see people
littering, dumping domestic garbage in drains and open grounds, spitting in
public places etc. This clearly indicates to lack of efforts in behavior
management and skill building.
To conclude, I would say, the political establishment to which
people want to assign power to govern, must only not possess a clear vision for
faster and sustainable socio-economic development, it must be competent enough
to manage the changes that may be needed for attaining the goals.
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