Political Parties and Administrative Reforms in India


Book Description

The political parties are a link between the citizens and the government and give meaning to the electoral process in a democracy. Since independence, political parties in India have been playing an important role in sustaining India’s democracy. A question may, however, be asked ‘how have they fared compared to their counterparts in other democracies?’ A comparison is perhaps possible based on the respective visions of the political parties as reflected in their election manifestoes. The present book examines the vision of political parties with respect to ‘administrative reforms’. Significantly, the two Administrative Reforms Commissions in the past identified a host of areas needing reforms. While a good many of their recommendations have been implemented, a larger number of them have remained unimplemented. ‘Lack of political will’ has often been held responsible for their non-implementation. The book attempts to draw attention to issues relating to administrative reforms at the level of the Central Government, the State Government and the Local Bodies.




The Management of Change in Government


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Public Administration in South Asia


Book Description

A state-of-the-art, one-stop resource, Public Administration in South Asia: India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan examines public administration issues and advances in the Indian subcontinent. The book fulfills a critical need. These nations have the largest public administration programs in South Asia, yet existing knowledge on them is fragmented at best. Bringing together leading scholars from these countries, this book provides both an insider perspective and a scholarly look at the challenges and accomplishments in the region. Focusing on the machinery of government, the book explores questions such as: What is the history of public administration development? How are major decisions made in the agencies? Why are anti-corruption efforts so much a challenge? What is the significance of intergovernmental relations? What is the success of administrative reform? What are examples of successful social development programs? How successful is e-government, and what are its challenges? Why is civil service reform difficult to achieve? How is freedom of information being used as a means to combat corruption and invoke grassroots activism? What can be learned from the successes and failures? While public administration practice and education have become considerably professionalized in the last decade, a sufficiently in-depth and well-rounded reference on public administration in these countries is sorely lacking. Most available books tackle only aspects of public administration such as administrative reforms, civil service, economic developments, or public policy, and are country specific. None provide the in-depth analysis of the sphere of public action in South Asia found in this book. It supplies an understanding of how public administration can be either the source of, or solution to, so many of the problems and achievements in the Indian subcontinent.




Recasting Public Administration in India


Book Description

Ever since a democratic system of government was adopted and a strategy of planned economic development was launched in India, the planners were quite conscious of the need for an administrative system different from the colonial one to implement the planned objective of development. Kuldeep Mathur, in this volume, examines these administrative reforms and provides a magisterial account of the changes in the institutional process of public administration. The introduction of neoliberal policies revived concerns about reform and change, thereby giving rise to a new vocabulary in the discourse of public administration. The conventional world of public administration was now expected to adopt management practices of the private sector and interact with it to achieve public policy goals. New institutions are now being layered on traditional ones, and India is becoming a recipient of managerial ideas whose efficacy has yet to be tested on Indian soil. In light of the aforementioned changes, this volume argues that hybrid architecture for delivering public goods and services has been the most significant transformation to be institutionalized in the current era and critiques the neoliberal transformation from within a mainstream public administration perspective.




Corruption and Reform in India


Book Description

Why do some governments improve public services more effectively than others? Through the investigation of a new era of administrative reform, in which digital technologies may be used to facilitate citizens' access to the state, Jennifer Bussell's analysis provides unanticipated insights into this fundamental question. In contrast to factors such as economic development or electoral competition, this study highlights the importance of access to rents, which can dramatically shape the opportunities and threats of reform to political elites. Drawing on a sub-national analysis of twenty Indian states, a field experiment, statistical modeling, case studies, interviews of citizens, bureaucrats and politicians, and comparative data from South Africa and Brazil, Bussell shows that the extent to which politicians rely on income from petty and grand corruption is closely linked to variation in the timing, management and comprehensiveness of reforms.




Administrative Reforms


Book Description

This volume analyses the impact of globalisation on governance, and specifically on public-sector reforms. Starting from the premise that adhocism and sectoralism are the main reasons why past attempts at administrative reforms in India have not succeeded, this book maintains that some of the basic tenets of mainstream approaches to administrative reform require urgent and critical re-examination. The ten essays in this book dwell on three distinct areas—urban governance, energy and environmental governance, and service delivery systems—which have been subjected to a blizzard of reforms in recent years. The contributors investigate the role of public and private partners as agents of change and showcase successful experiments that have transformed the lives of local rural communities.




Administrative Reform in India


Book Description

This title is the Audio CD Accompanying The Inside Out Advanced Workbook.




What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver


Book Description

An unorthodox and maverick administrator, the author worked in top policy positions, but the system rejected the reforms that he advocated. In his career he followed the economic philosophy of ‘socialism for the poor and free market for the rich’. However, the political and administrative system in India seemed to believe in ‘indifference to the poor and control over the rich to facilitate rent seeking’. The book is full of anecdotes ranging from how the author resisted political corruption that led to the Prime Minister’s annoyance to a situation when the author himself ‘bribed’ the Chief Minister to scrap oppressive laws against tribal women. As Joint Secretary, Minorities Commission, the author exposed the communal bias of the district administration in handling riots in Meerut; he was punished for bringing to light the killing of innocent Muslim women and children by the police. When Bihar became a ‘failed state’ during the Lalu Prasad Yadav era of 1990–2005, the author did not hesitate in rebuking the Chief Secretary who was his senior in service, and accused IAS officials in Bihar of behaving like English-speaking politicians. Despite their high integrity, hard work and competence, IAS officials do not exercise sufficient control over the field staff who collude with the junior staff in reporting false figures on hunger deaths, malnutrition and usage of toilets, leading to erosion of accountability. Not only do many welfare programmes such as NREGA, ICDS and PDS have design flaws, governance in India at the state and district levels is also quite weak, manifesting itself in poor service delivery, uncaring administration, corruption, and uncoordinated and wasteful public expenditure. Analysing the present Indian situation, the book suggests policy changes in all cross-cutting systemic issues such as the role of politicians, tenure, size and nature of Indian bureaucracy, accountability, monitoring of programmes and civil service reforms, which will transform individual competencies of IAS officers into better collective outcomes.




Indian Public Administration


Book Description




PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA


Book Description

The book presents an updated analysis of the public administrative system existing in India, covering different administrative structures as well as functions at the Central, State, district and local levels of our country. NEW TO THE SECOND EDITION • A thorough discussion on the structure of the civil services • Functions and roles of the— President, Prime Minister, Council of Ministers, Finance, Home and External Affairs Ministries, and Central Secretariat • Roles of the State administration with special emphasis on the—Governor, Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, State Secretariat, and District Collector • Thorough analysis of the local self governments at the rural and urban areas of India • Women's participation in the rural local self government. • Explain financial administration, welfare administration, citizens and administration, and major Indian committees and commissions • Discusses issues such as Personnel Administration, Administration of Law and Order, Information Technology, Human Rights, Globalisation and Civil Society, etc. • Detailed analyses of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Changing Nature of Planning—NITI Aayog, MGNREGA, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), NRHM, Gender and Administration • A new chapter on 'Some Recent Developments in the Concept of Administration' (Chapter 16). TARGET AUDIENCE Ø B.A. Political Science Ø M.A. Political Science Ø Civil Services Aspirants