Challenges in Bureaucracy

Indian bureaucracy is considered the steel frame of India. They are considered as a group of faceless, nameless leader who scripts India's future outside parliament. They are trained administrators who are masters in managing a variety of teams and getting the work done. However, the 21st century poses a big challenge to the traditional notion of bureaucracy. 

The first challenge is that the current bureaucratic dispensation is centered around administrative activity whereas the globally focal point of leadership has moved from administrative leadership to technical leadership. In essence, bureaucrats are expected to be technology leaders rather than mere administrative leaders running the show with the help of consultants. The idea of a people manager does not have buyers in government as well. To extend this further, we have entered the age of specialist rather than a generalist.

The second challenge is regular promotions. Currently, bureaucrats see regular fast-tracked promotions based on ranks obtained in the UPSC exam or state service exam. As a consequence, they suffer from a lack of motivation for job performance. Jobs are defined by rank and paygrade rather than quantitative and qualitative performance outcome indicators and feedback obtained from the general public. 

The third challenge is homogeneous teams rather than cross-functional team structures. Bureaucratic teams are experts in passing files around rather than getting any real work done. This is the biggest bottleneck in their performance. Teams are not formed on the basis of functional competence and skill maps. As a result, there is no person-job fit in the bureaucracy. 

Collectively these challenges of generalist bureaucracy, absence of quantitative and qualitative indicators for performance outcome, and poor person-job fit are rusting the steel frame of the country. Solutions to this require a drastic restructuring of bureaucracy.

Every job description in the government job should be re-aligned and reassessed in terms of clear job performance parameters. For example, Teachers' jobs should be rated in terms of the percentage of scores obtained by students in the school. Police jobs should be rated in terms of the reduction in crime in the area.  The revenue officer's job should be in terms of how much revenue does he collect in the assessment year. At the senior level, the success of the job could be defined in terms of the size of the project which is successfully completed and audited, and the impact of the project in social-economic terms.

The second related reform could be to rearrange the bureaucracy in terms of functional competence. The government should identify thousands of pilot projects and invite bureaucrats to bid for the same w.r.t. time of completion and impact it can create. Bureaucrats should be able to submit small RFPs on their own for any new project and form teams on functional lines. For example, suppose the government wishes to replicate an equivalent of a Chinese product in the Indian market and the private sector is not coming forward then a pilot project could be launched by the government. This project could be headed by a cross-functional specialist bureaucratic team who can run the pilot and showcase a path for the private sector to take up the project.  

The vision of new India substantially hinges on the shoulder of bureaucracy.  Without bureaucratic makeover, any other kind of reform is difficult to succeed.