In a shocking dereliction of duty, barrage gates of the Yamuna were found jammed, leading to flooding. Water pits were left open, resulting in drowning of unsuspecting people, going about their usual business

Less than a week ago, the country witnessed an unsavoury court battle between the Lieutenant Governor and Chief Minister in Delhi over who gets to chair the panel for cleaning the Yamuna. Yet when the Yamuna is in spate, displacing thousands and causing untold misery, neither of the two is willing to take responsibility for the damage caused by the rampaging river.

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The inescapable conclusion is that a fight between politicians is mainly for the fishes and loaves of office; this was well summed up by a Shiv Sena (Shinde) minister when the Ajit Pawar faction of NCP joined the Government who said: “We had a full loaf, from now on we will have to make do with half a loaf.” Predominance of such disheartening news has made reading the morning newspaper a depressing task; as if images of the Russia-Ukraine war, and famine and strife in the Horn of Africa were not discouraging enough, we have our own mini civil war in Manipur. Then there are floods in North India, particularly in the capital city, Delhi. The fury of the rain god can neither be predicted nor lessened, but good planning and timely action can definitely mitigate human suffering when the skies burst.

Digging deeper into the news, one feels even more disturbed: six Delhi Police personnel have been arrested in as many days for offences like bribery and extortion. In fact, in a viral video, policemen are seen running with the CBI team in hot pursuit ~ a case of cops and robbers both being policemen. One wonders, if the police cannot prevent their own colleagues from engaging in criminal activities, can a common man hope that the police could prevent criminals from targeting them?

Failure to prevent violence during and after the Bengal Panchayat Polls, which was apprehended by everyone, and which did take place, prove this proposition. Whatever be the official figures, if one believes newspapers, criminals of all hues ~ cyber criminals, extortionists, vigilantes, murderers and thieves etc. ~ appear to be having a field day. At the same time, again through newspaper reports, one gathers that the administrative and police machinery is in deep slumber, waking up only to collect hafta or at politically opportune times e.g., to demolish the houses of suspected criminals.

No wonder, the Worldwide Governance Indicators ( WGI) that ranks 215 countries and territories on six dimensions of governance viz. Voice and Accountability; Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism; Government Effectiveness; Regulatory Quality; Rule of Law; Control of Corruption, placed India at 68th place with a meagre score of 48.9 out of 100. Perhaps, the social and electronic media have started an avalanche of negative news, which is also reflected in the print media, but surely it is the job of the State to ensure peace and security everywhere.

WGI did attract the attention of the Government; three years ago, the Principal Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, gave a presentation on ways to improve India’s ranking in WGI. Certain valid objections were raised about the methodology adopted for the WGI ranking, but unfortunately, the entire emphasis was on countering the “negative commentary on India by think tanks, survey agencies and international media” ~ not on improving governance.

The days seem long gone when some few upright men of sterling character, with meagre resources but full determination, could provide good governance to the entire country. The present lot of administrators is much better placed in terms of resources ~ financial, infrastructural and technological ~ yet the output is definitely poorer, with good reporting substituting for good governance.

With time, the public has lost all hope in a system in which administrators blame politicians, and vice versa, and both curse the elements, foreign powers, or even Nehru, when things go wrong, The recent floods in Delhi are a classic example of blame shifting, with the Central Government blaming the Delhi Government for inaction, the Delhi Government blaming the Central Government and its own bureaucrats (who are controlled by the Centre) and the bureaucrats holding a press conference against Delhi ministers ~ all at a time when the first priority of everyone should have been mitigation of human suffering and prevention of flooding. Significantly, after this surfeit of verbosity the Army and Navy were called in for flood control and relief, who quickly did the needful.

The Delhi floods raise a question that would, mutatis mundis, apply to all metropolises, where flooding has become increasingly common: Why were all kinds of Government sleeping when floodplains and wetlands were encroached, lakes and ponds were built upon, drains were not cleaned, and the Yamuna River was not desilted. In a shocking dereliction of duty, barrage gates of the Yamuna were found jammed, leading to flooding.

Water pits were left open, resulting in drowning of unsuspecting people, going about their usual business. Paying tribute to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on his birth anniversary (Good Governance Day, 25 December 2021), the then Vice-President Naidu observed that good governance needed good legislatures to oversee the performance of the executive. Mr. Naidu, lamented that in a serious abdication of its responsibility, the Rajya Sabha had lost about 61 per cent of Question Hour time, in the just concluded Winter Session, on account of disruptions. Unfortunately, disruption of Parliament has only increased in the last two years, leading to an unsupervised executive.

However, the problems of officialdom are of a more basic nature. Over the years the bureaucratic machinery has become increasingly slothful and corrupt; most Government schemes fail to deliver desired results because they are not implemented properly by ill-trained and lethargic bureaucrats, who treat Government employment as a sinecure. To improve the functioning of the bureaucracy, the Government had launched the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (Mission Karmayogi) in September 2020, with a timeline of one year. However, so far, Mission Karmayogi has not taken off; there has been no impetus in the training of civil servants, and in many cases, the right person is not in the right position. But a much simpler solution is possible; the Government can make decision-making transparent and make the bureaucracy responsible for the decisions taken by them, including reasons for not taking a decision.

All that went wrong in the aftermath of heavy rainfall in Delhi could have been significantly lessened if certain mundane tasks had been completed in time e.g., drains had been cleaned before the monsoon, Yamuna River had been desilted and the functioning of barrage gates checked.

However, the devastation during the floods shows that the thousands of employees, supervised by hundreds of officers, employed in various Government departments, for these very purposes, totally neglected their duties. Going by precedents, one can be sure that if any enquiry is held into the circumstances leading to the flood, and the deficient response thereto, everyone will be given a clean chit, or at the most some lowly functionary will get a slap on the wrist.

The much-reviled Emergency was the last occasion when the bureaucracy performed its assigned role e.g., meeting targets, running trains on time and being available in office during office hours, which leads one to conclude that wielding a big stick is required to make government functionaries fall in line. So, another necessary reform could be streamlining the convoluted procedure to book delinquent officers, that makes action against bureaucrats virtually impossible.

This would put the fear of God in bureaucrats, particularly lower-level functionaries, who are the first point of contact for citizens. Brooks Atkinson, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, had said: “The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.” Perhaps, we already have a perfect bureaucracy.

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