Bureaucracy as Interface between State and Citizenry

The main role of bureaucracy is bridge between citizen and government of the day. The interface is critical for carrying out the administration as well as acquiring feedback from citizens. Hence, they remove the gulf between expectations of the electorate and the government policies. E.g., Citizens participate in administration through RTI, framing of citizen charters, public hearings during Environment Impact Assessment.

Critical Role in Developing Countries: 

Developing nations like India are facing problems like growing population, poverty, lack of basic amenities, etc. The key responsibility of Bureaucracy is to cope up with these challenges and give solutions to all these challenges as well. These rising challenges are creating equally huge pressure on public services and servants for allocation of resources especially economic

resource allocation and ensuring socioeconomic justice in India. The following are the important functions of civil servants are as follows:

• Defining appropriate developmental goals and priorities in areas such as education and literacy, health and family welfare, rural development and regeneration, industrialization and urbanisation, infrastructure modernisation, and a plethora of nationbuilding programmes.
• Policy formulation and implementation of the various policies on national and state level government. The target of micro level planning including district and block level planning for achieving targets and goals of the policy.
• Improving capacities from existing one especially human resources within the administrative system.
• One of the main responsibilities of the Civil Servants is to take care of the community resources like land, forest, water, wetlands, lakes, and lands of the various government resources etc. For example, Umakant Umrao, the Dewas District Collector, built over 16,000 ponds to aid farmers in Madhya Pradesh who were suffering from drought.
• Civil services ensure industrial development through provisioning of infrastructure facilities such as roads, electricity, communication, etc. For example, the notable example of the work carried out by the IAS officer Ritu Maheshwari, she installed smart metres for countering electricity theft in Kanpur of Uttar Pradesh.
• Civil servants assist in the development and mobilisation of natural, human, and financial resources, as well as their proper utilisation, to achieve developmental goals. P Narahari, for example, worked as a district collector in Madhya Pradesh to create a barrier free environment that allows individuals with disabilities to move around safely and independently.
• Civil servants act as a bridge between the government and the general public, obtaining public support for developmental efforts by integrating citizens in the development process and instilling suitable attitudes regarding the socio-economic changes that are occurring in society. For example, in Warangal, IAS Officer Smita Sabharwal, also known as “the people’s officer,” initiated a campaign called “Fund Your City”. She appealed to villagers to assist her in constructing infrastructure in Naxal-affected areas, which led to the creation of traffic junctions and foot over bridges.