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The essence of good governance
Happiness index: Let’s learn from Bhutan |
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High-speed trains
On Record
Profile
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The essence of good governance AN important question embedded in the Audit Report on Issue of Licences and Allotment of 2G Spectrum of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) concerns the relationship between the Secretary to the Government of India and the Union
Minister. The recommendation was also in line with the views of the Ministry of Finance that carried the personal endorsement of the Union Finance Minister. However, the Telecom Minister overruled the recommendation of his Ministry’s Secretary and the Finance Member in the following
words: “Officers have neither up-to-date knowledge of the Unified Access Service (UAS) guidelines nor have they bothered to carefully go through the file…These types of continuous confusions observed on the file whoever be the officer concerned does not show any legitimacy and integrity but only their vested interest…The matter of entry fee has been deliberated in the department several times in the light of various guidelines issued by the department and recommendations of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and accordingly decision was taken that entry fee need not be
revised.” According to media reports, the Secretary recused himself from handling the case any further and retired from service soon thereafter; the Finance Member also put in her papers for voluntary retirement. According to the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961, all business of a Ministry shall be disposed of by or under the general or special orders of the Minister except where it requires consultation with other Ministries or the approval of the Prime Minister or the Cabinet. The rules also stipulate that the Ministry’s Secretary shall be its administrative head and he shall be responsible for the transaction of business and the careful observance of the rules in the
Ministry. In a democracy, it is generally accepted that the Secretary provides the inputs for policy formulation but it is the Minister who is ultimately responsible for the policy while the Secretary as the head of the departmental hierarchy oversees its delivery and implementation. But the lines between policy and its implementation can often be blurred, particularly with several big ticket transactions requiring the approval of the Minister or a Cabinet Committee or even the entire
Cabinet. Free, frank and uninhibited expression of views by the Secretary is the essence of healthy relationship between the Secretary and the Minister and indispensable to good governance. While the Secretary should feel free to “speak truth to power”, “power” should also be receptive to
“truth”. It was in keeping with the above that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had assured his Secretaries that he would never be displeased over a frank expression of views. He had told them, “if you cannot give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your Minister, please then you had better go. I will bring another
Secretary”. Incidentally, Sir Winston Churchill is reported to have once eased out a Permanent Secretary on the ground that the latter did not formally record his opinion on the file.
The intention is that the Secretary should neither second-guess the Minister, nor wait till the Minister has made up his mind and then make a case for it, but render apolitical, impartial, independent and professional advice guided solely by considerations of larger public interest and good governance.
The duties and responsibilities of the Secretary as the Chief Accounting Authority of his Ministry formally codified and notified in 2005 make him fully responsible for the stewardship of the Ministry’s finances from budget construction to implementation and the achievement of programme objectives besides ensuring proper maintenance of accounts. The essence of his responsibility lies in securing effective, efficient, economical and transparent use of the resources of the Ministry, whilst complying with performance standards. This corresponds more or less to the responsibility of the Permanent Secretary in the United Kingdom in his role as the Department’s Accounting
Officer. The all too often dissimilarity in their backgrounds, time horizons and the constituencies to which they are responsible carries the inevitable potential of differences in the attitudes and perception of the Secretary and the Minister. It is not as if financial profligacy is to be always associated with the Minister while such probity, virtue and wisdom exclusively reside in the Secretary and there can be an honest difference of opinion. But under the rules the Minister is not called before the PAC and it is the Secretary who has so to say to hold the baby. This places the Secretary in the unenviable position of having to explain or defend a course of action to which he may have been personally
opposed. In the United Kingdom, if the Minister is contemplating a course of action that the Permanent Secretary feels he may not be able to justify when called upon to defend it, the latter is required to set out his views in writing and obtain the specific direction of the Minister to proceed. On receipt of such a specific direction from the Minister, the Permanent Secretary will apprise the CAG and also send copies of all documents to the
CAG. The CAG will normally bring such a case to the notice of the PAC which is expected to recognise that the Permanent Secretary bears no responsibility in the matter even as the Permanent Secretary nevertheless projects the views of the Minister before the
PAC. Currently, the Secretary may write to the Cabinet Secretary if he has a serious difference of opinion with his Minister and the latter may keep the Prime Minister informed. But this is only internal to the government. The matter may remain hostage to political considerations which have only assumed heightened importance in the era of coalitions, besides being hidden from the sunlight of public scrutiny till it is too late for corrective action. There is need for an institutionalised procedure whereby such cases get reported to an independent
authority. A desirable takeaway from the CAG’s Audit Report may, therefore, be the introduction of a procedure similar to the one prescribed in the United Kingdom requiring the Secretary to promptly report to the CAG any order or decision of the Minister which involves significant violation of the applicable laws including subordinate legislation or procedures, or of the basic canons if financial propriety or which can result in poor value for money to which the Secretary is opposed. Failure to send a report to the CAG will invite the presumption of complicity of the Secretary in such orders and make him accountable for their
consequences. Besides promoting good governance and facilitating pinpointing of accountability, judiciously exercised this will at once provide a much-needed safety valve to the bureaucracy strengthening its backbone and also deny an alibi for an improper course of action on the plea of having acted under “orders from above”. This will also facilitate early and timely exposure of cases of irregular, improper or wasteful use of public resources for taking remedial action, for course correction and so to say for cutting the losses.
n The writer is a former Deputy
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Happiness index: Let’s learn from Bhutan THE Gross Domestic Product (GDP), per capita income, sensex, balance of payments and such other indicators were the yardsticks to measure the progress of a country earlier. Now more reliable indicators like education, health services, sanitation, rate of mortality, sex ratio and such other concepts are used to assess the development of a country as measured in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI) as reflected in the Human Development Report published yearly under the auspices of the United
Nations. Bhutan has developed a unique development philosophy centred around the concept of the Gross National Happiness (GNH). It has four pillars: economic development, good governance, preservation and development of environment and culture. The emphasis is not on the GDP but wellbeing of citizens which arises in a society where sustainable and equitable development is balanced with environmental and cultural preservation and good
governance. The conventional economic growth paradigm is seriously flawed and delusional. The GNH is a holistic approach to human needs with stress on both the material and spiritual needs of the people. It is one of the most disturbing concepts, as rightly put by a Canadian philosopher, John Ralston Saul — disturbing because it upsets completely what is in place every where
else. Besides conventional indicators of progress, utmost emphasis is laid on the basic tenets of the Buddhist ethics and conservation of environment resulting into clean air, water, energy and natural resources. Bhutan has distinguished itself internationally through the ban on the sale of tobacco providing serious penalties for its sale. The emphasis is on greater harmony between our internal and external landscapes. In consumerist culture, on the other hand, happiness is to be found through lifestyles that are unsustainable and cut-throat competition pitting man against man, breeding alienation and stress-laden
ennui. Preservation of culture in Bhutan is best seen in the promotion of tourist industry with its motto “high value, low volume tourism” inspired by the Buddhist view of interdependence between man and nature to ensure that people maintain their dignity against the onslaught of globalisation and modernisation. Thus, unlike Thailand and Nepal, there is no proliferation of prostitution in the garb of massage parlours and call girl racket in hotels in Bhutan.
The concept of the GHN, fervently pursued, has made the people of Bhutan relaxed, friendly, warm and cooperative in their behaviour and dealings. There are no wide social chasms as seen in many other
countries. India is much larger and more developed country than Bhutan. India has had the highest rate of economic growth after China. We have the largest number of dollar billionaires in Asia. While our top layer elites have acquired a living standard worthy of envy by the affluent Americans, at the base of the social pyramid are the millions who find it difficult to
survive. According to the Arjun Sengupta Commission on Unorganised Enterprises, 77 pert cent of Indians live on less than Rs 20 a day. The Suresh Tendulker Report says, 41.8 per cent of the rural households live below the poverty line. The National Crime Records Bureau estimates that about two lakh farmers have committed suicide since 1997. The latest Family Health Survey-III finds the prevalence of anaemia to the tune of 80 per cent in children, 70 per cent in pregnant women and 24 per cent in adult
men. In the Global Hunger Index, India ranks 66th among 88 countries surveyed. The truth of the talk of growth with human face is best exemplified by the phenomenon of an industrial magnate building a 27-storey, seven-star mansion costing Rs 5,000 crore to house five members in Mumbai while almost half the population there lives in slums and on
footpaths. The 21st century in India would be best known as a century of scams in the light of a spate of massive scandals in our times. The Rs 64-crore Bofors scandal is like peanuts in the face of lakhs of crorers worth of scams now. A section of our ruling elite perhaps nourishes the illusion of immortality to enjoy the gains of ill-gotten wealth till eternity with no fear of
death. Roman generals, after achieving victory in the battlefield, were taken out in a procession in the imperial capital with a slave behind whispering regularly Memento mori (remember you are mortal). There is no such constraint on our elites. The process of liberalisation seems to have liberated them completely from all moral concerns and they have turned their back on our sages ranging from Buddha to Gandhi who treated simplicity and austerity as the hallmark of a civilised
existence. There is an odd phenomenon of a Prime Minister known for his goodness and integrity surrounded by a pack of colleagues whose appetite for greed is a bottomless pit. Bertrand Russel’s observation, “Among politicians good men have their uses, the chief of which is to afford a smokescreen behind which others carry on their activities unsuspected” in his essay Harm That Good Men Do is quite pertinent in the present
case. The current development strategy as pursued by our ruing elites is unsustainable and is doing violence to both human essence and our environment. The massive deforestation and mining, illegal in many cases, is posing a serious threat to ecological balance. The immense wealth in the bosom of our mother earth is being thrown open to the corporates depriving the populace there of their means of livelihood and habitat, giving rise to violence in a sizeable swath of our mainland. This is brutalising both the parties in the
conflict. The massive upheaval taking place in several countries should be an eye-opener. The per capita income in Egypt is higher and the incidence of poverty less than in India, yet people rose in revolt for overthrow of the suffocating dictatorship. Democracy acts as a safety valve. However, the democratic space is fast shrinking in India. The form of Indian democracy is largely intact — periodic elections, adult franchise, separation of powers etc. but its content is getting
eroded. The least Indian society needs to today is a strong civil society comprising professional associations, NGOs, a vigilant media, pressure groups and public spirited individuals. Various progressive measures like the Right to Information Act, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Forest Act, the Compulsory Education Act etc. are the outcome of movements by civil society. The process needs to be strengthened if our democracy has to acquire essence. A lot can be learnt from
Bhutan.n
The writer, a noted sociologist
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High-speed trains
Mamata
Banerjee, the Railway Minister and the stormy petrel of West Bengal does not believe in mincing words. She has always called a spade a spade. She once again amply demonstrated this while presenting the Railway Budget to
Parliament. No wonder, scores of railway projects which are financially unviable but serve to develop the economy of rural or backward areas are, according to her, socially desirable, and hence worthy of being considered for implementation by the Railway
Ministry. In her quest, Ms Banerjee has managed to persuade Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to provide Rs 20,000 crore as a budgetary support for 104 new lines proposed by her a few years ago and for which surveys have been completed. They can now be taken up for construction in 2011-12 and beyond, whether they meet the norms of IRR (Internal Rate of Return) or
not. High-speed corridors have been talked about by successive Railway Ministers since the last one decade. However, Ms Banerjee for the first time has been honest enough to admit that nothing much has come of the past initiatives.
She proposes to now hire a Japanese consultant to carry out a pre-feasibility study of a 160-250 kmph (kilometres per hour) high-speed corridor on the Delhi-Mumbai leg of the Golden Quadrilateral, to be extended later to other sections, i.e. Delhi-Kolkata, Kolkata-Chennai and Mumbai-Chennai. After all the Japanese were the first one to conceive and implement the high speed era of the Shinkansens almost half a century back in
1964. “Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination. Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild
America.” With these famous words in a speech delivered on April 16, 2010, US President Barack Obama announced a new vision for high-speed and inter-city passenger rail service in America. It was also a part of the extensive packages put together by his administration to revive the economy, develop infrastructure, start new manufacturing activities, create jobs. At the same time, it promised to reduce overcrowding of roads and
resultant carbon emissions. However, the high-speed (around 250 kmph) concept is useful only when it
helps to connect cities within a 500-km radius enabling a commute of not
more than two hours. It helps to slow down, sometimes even halt and reverse migration from the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to major urban centres such as
Metros. Indeed, the concept of high-speed trains has been highly successful in countries such as Spain where all major cities are within a 500-km radius of Madrid, its capital. It could be ideal for linking cities such as Ludhiana-Delhi, Chandigarh-Delhi, Delhi-Gwalior, Chennai-Madurai, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Kolkata-Dhanbad etc.
China’s very own bullet trains — a pair of ‘D’ trains, capable of a maximum speed of 250 kmph — leave Shanghai, and Beijing everyday at the
same time, at 10.50 a.m. reaching their respective destinations — 1,463
km away — at exactly 8.49 p.m. or just under 10 hours, maintaining an
average speed of 146 kmph. Back home, the superfast Rajdhani Express, the pride of the Indian Railways, covers 1,389 km from Mumbai to Delhi in 17 hours, clocking an average speed of just 82
kmph. However, think-tanks in China have now realised that high-speed (250 kmph
and above) corridors on long distances such as between Beijing and Kowloon in the south end up being too costly with no appreciable benefits.
ln India, a slightly higher average speed of 160 kmph, for which the Railways also would not have to shell out mega bucks for the upgradation, would be quite adequate for the Delhi-Kolkata journey to be completed in just over nine hours and the Delhi-Mumbai run under nine hours, giving a business traveller enough time not only to complete his work but also save on hotel
bills. With trains running at an average speed of 250 kmph, completing a journey from city-centre to city-centre in just under two hours would also save a traveller hassles of a long commute to and from the airport, security checks and uncertainty created during those foggy days.
Trains may be delayed, but you don’t have to cool your heels in the passenger lounge waiting for the announcements and, last but not the least, they will always reach you to the intended destination, and in one
piece.
The writer is a former Member, Railway Board, New Delhi
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On Record Sixty-year-old Ilina Sen is Professor of Women’s Studies at Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Vishwavidya-laya, Wardha. She is the wife of Dr Binayak Sen, who is presently serving life imprisonment in Chhattisgarh on charges of sedition and of violating sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act.
Dr Binayak Sen, a public health specialist, is also a human rights activist. He is the national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). During a visit to Lucknow recently, she spoke to The Tribune about the tough legal battle being fought to free Dr Binayak Sen. Excerpts: Q: What is the case against Dr Binayak Sen? A: Binayak has been convicted of sedition and of violating the UAPA and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act. His jail ticket notes his provisional date of release as 2028. The conviction has followed an unfair prosecution and prejudiced judgement based on confessional statement recorded, according to the judge, during ‘preliminary investigation’ even before the first accused in the case was arrested, thereby defeating the provision of inadmissibility of custodial confessions. In the absence of any visible crime, this first arrest and the so-called ‘preliminary investigation’ become the ‘incident’ around which the case is woven. The charges framed are vague regarding the nature, time and place of the ‘crime’. The case against Binayak hinges upon his 33 meetings with jailed Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal, his supposed couriering of Sanyal’s letters and their passing on to Pijush Guha, throu supposedly given effect. Since the prosecution failed to produce even a single jail official or any other eyewitness testifying to any letter or message, oral or written, being passed by Narayan Sanyal to Binayak Sen in their jail meetings, the verdict makes much fuss about certain entries in jail registers referring to Sen being Sanyal’s relative, ignoring the defence contention that these entries were filled in by the jail officials, and not by either the visited or visitor. These visits were duly permitted by the jail officials and transpired in their full view and hearing. Binayak’s statement to the court gives a rational explanation for these visits — how he had to facilitate Narayan Sanyal’s hand surgery at the Raipur Medical College — but this was not considered. Q: What is the present status of the case? A: The legal case is continuing with all its delays. The appeal against the trial court verdict has been filed in the Chhattisgarh High Court, Bilaspur. This was accompanied by an application for the suspension of sentence and his release on bail. The High Court has rejected it on February 10, 2011. The Supreme Court has admitted our appeal and sent a notice to the state. We are yet to hear about the date. The main appeal against the conviction and sentence is pending in the High Court and will come up for hearing in due course. In general, the pendency of appeal in Chhattisgarh is of at least six years. We are in for a long haul. Q: Why did the High Court not consider the evidence? A: This was a political case, though Binayak is apolitical. It was important for the politics of the high security tough state to set an exemplary sentence to a civil society activist who was questioning the level of collateral damage on ordinary tribal life in the course of anti-Maoist security operations. The evidence was not considered and was mischievously misinterpreted. For example, the court order says that among the suspicious material found on Binayak’s computer was a letter about Prakash Soni (a constable kidnapped by the Maoists) on the PUCL letterhead. What it does not say is that this was actually an appeal for his release. Similarly, New Delhi’s Indian Social Institute (ISI) was interpreted as Pakistan’s ISI. Q: What is the lesson for the citizen? A: While some have been frightened into silence, many others have been outraged and are taking to the streets in protest. The ordinary Indian citizen has begun to reclaim the political sphere which is, certainly, not the intention of the state.  |
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Profile ONE of the leading figures of the Naxalite revolt of the late 1960s, Ashim Chatterjee, is now a reformed revolutionary. He feels the massacre of security personnel in Chhattisgarh is “social terrorism” and blames Maoists for causing “meaningless” bloodshed. Once a confidant of CPI-ML founder Charu Majumdar, he says revolutions never succeed in countries that have a democratic system. “In China, the case was different. There, the armed struggle succeeded in the face of a counter armed struggle. But In India, we have a parliamentary system. History tells us that no revolutionary movement has succeeded in places where the parliamentary system prevails”, he has been quoted as saying.
Now 67, Ashim emerged as a revolutionary from the historic student movement in the 1960s in West Bengal. Educated at Presidency College, Kolkata, he left his studies after graduation following a call of the Naxalbari peasant uprising in 1967. The uprising was described by extreme leftwing groups as “Spring Thunder over India” after a similar declaration by the Chinese media. Ashim joined the armed agrarian revolution under the banner of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which was led by Charu Majumdar. Ashim was the party’s youngest Central Committee Member. He later differed with Charu on certain points and in 1971 they parted ways. Ashim was arrested in November, 1971 and spent seven years in different prisons. Released in 1978, he, after revisiting his experience, formed a new party in 1984 — the Communist Revolutionary League of India, of which he was the general secretary. The party joined the broad left movement in India. After the collapse of socialism as practised in the USSR and other countries, Ashim concluded “regimented parties the world over have lost their relevance and a fusion of democracy and socialism has become imperative. As such, a renewal of the concept of socialism as well as the Communist party has become necessary. Still a Marxist, he is working on developing the theoretical basis of this concept. Kanu Sanyal was the man who created the term Naxalism and gave this extreme form of communism a permanent place in Indian history, took his own life by hanging himself at his residence in Hatinghisa village near Naxalbari — from where his peasant revolution originated. If Charu is considered an ideologue of the Naxalite movement, Kanu was its organiser and iron-fist. Sanyal rejected Charu’s advocacy of individual assassination, which according to Ashim Chatterjee, was “anarchism of the Bakuninist type” (Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism). Right until the end of his life, Kanu remained a rebel and a fighter. In 2006, while travelling in the unreserved compartment from a Kolkata-bound train, dacoits boarded the compartment and robbed the passengers of their belongings. While everyone else gave in without a fight, the septuagenarian revolutionary put up resistance and received stab injury. Age illness could not rob him of his spirit. Ashim, popularly known as kaka, is virtually getting disillusioned with Naxalite-type of insurgency. “The over-reliance on modern weaponry and terrain, the killing of tribals on charges of being informers and the annihilation of lower-level CPM cadres are contributing to totalitarianism”, he says. A reformed Naxalite, Ashim contested in 1991 from Rashbehari and lost as a CPM-supported candidate. In 1995, his new outfit, the Communist Revolutionary League of India, was admitted into the Left Front but he was out of the coalition in the wake of a minor rebellion in the CPM by Saifuddin Chaudhury. He unsuccessfully contested the West Bengal Assembly elections twice — first as the CPI-ML supported Independent and in 2006 as a Trinamul Congress-supported candidate. Ranabir Samaddar, a political scientist of the Calcutta Research Group, says: “Insurgencies don’t die easily. The revival of the Maoist movement in Bengal shows that. But there aren’t too many options for the people in the past. You can choose to be a Medha Patkar, of course. May be Ashim Chatterjee’s problem is that he has to sustain his image as a Naxalite without being a Naxalite”. |
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As recounted in the CAG’s Audit Report, the Finance Member of the Telecom Commission, Department of Telecommunications (ex officio Secretary to the Government), had recommended an in-depth analysis of the issues relating to entry fee for granting new licences. The Telecom Secretary concurred in the recommendation.
