Parliament & Secretariat Organizations
- in Parliamentary democracy
- political exec responsible for policy formulation
- bureaucracy responsible for implementation
- eg. Cabinet highest policy making body but political exec consists of professional politicians whose knowledge about administration limited
- policy formulation & implementation is highly technical activity
- demands specialized skills & knowledge
- to overcome weakness, secretariat organizations came into existence
- these secretariat orgs provide necessary technical inputs to political exec in policy formulation
- origin in british rule
- Indian Councils Act 1861 introduced Portfolio System in secretariat administration
- entire administration divided into various ministries & depts. based on division of work and specialization
- Head of these depts. were there to assist GG in administration
Secretariat Administration in India
2 important principles
- split systems
- tenure system
Split System
- work of govt broadly split into policy formulation and implementation
- policy formulation responsibility of staff organizations
- implementation are domain of line agencies
| Staff Organizations | Line Organizations |
|---|---|
| responsible for policy formulation | responsible for policy implementation |
| Central Secretariat, Cabinet Secretariat, PM Office, NITI Aayog | departments, directorates |
| headed by generalist civil servants | headed by specialists |
| advisory power | mandatory power |
| can control functioning of line agencies | mustfunction under staff agencies |
Tenure System
- IAS officers allotted state based cadres at time of recruitment
- cadre based civil service
- expected to work for rest of life in particular cadre
- central secretariat orgs responsible for policy formulation
- India diverse countries: policy must reflect ground level realities to ensure diversity
- civil servants from different states expected to come on deputation to central secretariat orgs for 5 yr tenure
- expected to use field level experience to formulate better policies
- once tenure over, must go back to state
Ministry & Departments
| Ministry | Department |
|---|---|
| Headed by Minister | Headed by Secretary |
| has multiple departments | under a ministry |
- Home Affairs Ministry has max depts (07), followed by Finance Ministry (06)
Problems
- 17 ministries at time of independence, but 57 now
- rapid expansion due to political factors
- not resulted in any significant improvements in overall efficiency of administration
- problems:
- conflict between ministries, depts. over their duties
- duplication of work
- problems related to coordiantion
- red tapism
- time and cost overruns and overall inefficiency
- 2nd ARC: each ministry has 16 different hierarchical levels wherein at every level, the concerned official has absolute veto power, making administration inefficient
Solutions
- 2nd ARC: reduce ministries from 57 to 27
- merge similar performing ministries into one
- create more depts to ensure better coordination
- PM GATI SHAKTI Yojna
- to ensure timely completion of infra projects thru PPP Model
- coordination
- fixed time limits
- continuous performance monitoring
- 2nd ARC: reduce hierarchical levels from 16 to 4
Other Reforms
- E governance
- lateral entry
- citizen charters mandatory for all depts. and ministries
- strict RTI implementation
- objective performance evaluation of bureaucracy thru Social Audit Committees
- De politicization of civil services
- single window clearances to reduce red tapism, inefficiency
- fixing time limits for bureaucrats to complete their responsibilities
- merit based promotions
Our secretariat -> inverse pyramid
-
max bureaucrats at top level in policy formulation.
-
very few officers at field level in policy implementation.
-
2nd ARC -> pyramid be reversed
- max bureaucrats should be at field levels
-
meritorious bureaucrats must be promoted to secretariat orgs