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Q1. The central government governs with the principle of “Minimum Government – Maximum Governance”. In this context, highlight the Union Government’s initiatives for administrative reforms. (250 words, 15 Marks)
Approach:
- Introduction: Give a broad idea about “Minimum Government – Maximum Governance”.
- Body:
- Explain why we need administrative reforms.
- Highlight various recent administrative reforms.
- Conclusion: Conclude suitably.
Answer:
The term “minimum government” refers to the government’s ownership of assets, personnel count, control over institutions (financial, educational, and social) and regulation of those institutions, as well as regulatory and other procedures, which are optimised.
- To effectively translate policy into practice, these should be improved. Government must be accessible, participatory, people-centric, and people-friendly.
- Maximum governance entails the efficient coordination of many stakeholders, including the federal government, state governments, and the private sector.
- It also involves the effective and necessary regulation of institutions in the public interest. A clear, stable, and liberal policy framework can help with this.
Need for Administrative Reforms:
- In a Parliamentary democracy, Bureaucrats are not directly accountable to citizens.
- They are responsible to the political executive, which has only resulted in the politicisation of the Civil Services. So, to promote accountability civil services reforms should be encouraged.
- Civil service reform aims at strengthening administrative capacity to perform core government functions.
- These reforms raise the quality of services to the citizens that are essential to promoting sustainable economic and social development.
Recent Administrative Reforms by Government:
- Launch of “Mission Karmayogi”: National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), a new national architecture for civil services capacity building has been launched.
- It is a comprehensive reform of the capacity-building apparatus at the individual, institutional and process levels for efficient public service delivery.
- e-Samiksha: A real-time online system for monitoring and follow-up action on the decisions taken by the Government at the Apex level in respect of the implementation of important Government programmes.
- Good Governance Index: It assesses the Status of Governance and the impact of various
interventions taken up by the State Government and Union Territories (UTs).
- National Conference on e-Governance: It provides a platform for the government to engage with experts, intellectuals from industry and academic institutions to exchange experiences relating to e-Governance initiatives.
- Citizen Charters: The government has mandated Citizen Charters for all Ministries/Departments which are updated and reviewed on a regular basis.
- e-Office: e-Office Mission Mode Project (MMP) has been strengthened for enabling Ministries/ Departments to switch over to paperless offices and efficient decision-making.
- Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS): The Government is undertaking CPGRAMS reforms in the top grievance receiving Ministries/ Departments by enabling a questionnaire-guided registration process and providing for automatic forwarding of grievances to field-level functionaries thereby reducing the redress time.
Reforms to ensure Minimum Government and Maximum Governance in the Budget 2021:
- Reforms in Tribunals
- National Commission for Allied Healthcare Professionals Bill
- National Nursing and Midwifery Commission Bill
- Conciliation mechanism to be set up
- Digital Census
The dream of “Minimum Government – Maximum Governance” is to bring the Government closer to citizens so that they become active participants in the governance process. It is an important step for Good Governance as well. The simplification of procedures and processes with reforms in the Government is to make the entire system transparent and faster.
