The rampaging Covid-19 pandemic has badly exposed the shortcomings of the Indian bureaucracy. The pandemic afforded an opportunity to the bureaucracy to do what it does best ~ make notes on file and pass orders.

Bureaucrats surpassed themselves by passing lengthy orders in arcane English, prohibiting movement and assembly of people in all possible ways, losing sight of the failing economy or the sea of hungry humanity walking on blistering hot roads.

Later on, when Shramik trains were organised to transport migrant labour, it was seen that a number of trains had lost their way, reaching their destination days after their scheduled arrival. Then, thousands of crores of rupees were earmarked to provide food and shelter to people rendered homeless and jobless but newspaper reports suggest that little timely aid reached the intended beneficiaries.

The lockdown also saw bureaucrats changing their stripes. Initially, there was great bonhomie between bureaucrats of the Central and State Governments. The Cabinet Secretary held e-meetings with Chief Secretaries of States, advising them about the future course of action to be followed, often bypassing the political executive.

However, as things began to unravel, non- BJP State Governments started blaming the Central Government and vice-versa. Both sets of bureaucrats soon started talking in their respective masters’ voices, sometimes losing sight of the main objective of managing the Coronavirus pandemic. The present Government gave the slogan of “Minimum Government but maximum governance” indicating that technology would be used as a force multiplier in governance initiatives.

However, till now the Government has used technology mainly as an instrument of eliminating discretion and promoting centralisation which has hamstrung bureaucratic initiative at the operational level ~ a lot of which is required to respond to crises, that can be successfully handled only if the man on the spot quickly tailors his responses to the emerging challenges.

Overcentralisation often results in pushing ‘one size fits all’ kind of measures. For example, at the time the countrywide lockdown was imposed, a host of omnibus instructions were issued, which were amended from time to time. The States issued their own set of instructions as to how the lockdown regulations were to be followed. There were many crossreferences in both sets of instructions.

Most of us felt drowned in the sea of words. Probably, it would have been better if the Central Government had explained, in plain language, what they expected from the public, and the local administration was given the task of spelling out the modalities of the lockdown. The example of Bhilwara in Rajasthan, where the local administration could contain the Coronavirus spread even before the nationwide lockdown was announced, is a case in favour of such an approach.

So far as the migrants’ problem is concerned, had the local administration been provided with sufficient funds and the responsibility of ensuring the migrants’ welfare right from day one, the heartrending suffering of these poor people could have been largely avoided. Imposition of the lockdown was justified by claiming that should we remain indoors for some time, there could be no spread of the Coronavirus.

At the time of Lockdown 1.0, a number of statistical models were created and catch phrases like ‘flattening the curve’, ‘increasing doubling time’ were used to convey that the Coronavirus pandemic would die down shortly. A member of Niti Aayog went so far as to claim that there would be no new Covid-19 cases by 15 May 2020.

Since the Coronavirus is an unknown quantity, it is not clear as to how people could predict the extent or timeline of its spread. We had less than 5000 cases when the lockdown was imposed. After five rounds of lockdown, Coronavirus infected cases have crossed 2 lakhs, still bureaucrats are tom-tomming their success by selectively quoting some statistics to show that their efforts have borne fruit.

This is the probably the way bureaucrats are taught to function; bureaucratic success depends more on writing good reports which would give one the impression that failure to achieve the desired results came about not from lack of effort or foresight but because of other factors. Phrases like ‘The situation is tense but under control’ or ‘The police had to resort to firing on the crowd’ are intentionally designed to hide more than to reveal.

Canny bureaucrats know that success is difficult to achieve and they, therefore, prepare themselves for failure as soon as a problem comes up. Possible reasons for failure are compiled beforehand and trotted out at the time of reckoning. Lack of focus on qualitative outcome is common in Government departments because Government employees do not work according to management principles.

Rather, Government employees are required to function according to Departmental instructions and circulars. Over the years, so many Departmental instructions have been issued that it is often not clear as to what should be done in a particular situation. Bureaucrats use such grey areas to justify almost any action that they take. On top of it, at the lower level, the bureaucracy is almost fully untrained and unequal to any challenge.

New recruits are supposed to learn from their seniors, who teach them their own antediluvian practices. The motto for new recruits is “Look backward, move forward” which would explain the bureaucratic fascination with precedents. This approach often results in bad decisions being perpetuated till eternity. Then we have the Government’s unwillingness to acknowledge that governance of technical departments like health, finance, or telecom, is beyond the ken of generalists.

Numerous committees had suggested that the top man in departments like revenue or defence should be a technical person. Appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), was kept pending for twenty years. Still it is probably the only instance where decision making of an important component of the Government was put in technical hands.

Interestingly, the entrenched bureaucracy had cited chapter and verse to oppose the transfer of their powers to the CDS ~ the bureaucrats would have liked to retain their dominance with the CDS being placed in a subordinate role. Our healthcare system has proved unequal to the challenge of the Coronavirus pandemic. Glaring shortages of medical personnel and medical equipment combined with inadequate and outdated infrastructure have hamstrung our response to the pandemic.

However, it would be surprising if there is a meaningful enquiry to redress the shortcomings of our healthcare system. Even otherwise, lack of accountability is the Achilles Heel of our governance structure. Between the Bofors scam and the 2-G, scam, interspersed by Commonwealth Games and Augusta Westland scams, we had a number of mega-scams. Surprisingly, no one has been convicted and not a red cent of the humongous amounts allegedly defalcated has been recovered so far.

The bottomline is that governance can improve only if bureaucrats are made accountable, performance oriented and capable of adopting the best management practices. In short, an optimisation of bureaucratic processes has to be initiated. Unfortunately, there has been little movement in this direction. Only a few recommendations of the reports of the First and Second Administrative Reforms Commission (1966 and 2005) have been implemented.

Before attempting the herculean task of cleaning the Augean Stables of bureaucracy, governance can be substantially improved by enforcing accountability in Government departments, giving proper training to Government employees and formulating SOPs for them in light of recent technical advances and changed business practices.

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)