What reforms are needed in the field of administration in post covid 19 India? A good question deserves to be asked. In Indian where bereaucracy is all encompassing and where every citizen has to depend upon bereaucracy for some one or other need and where the performance of bereaucracy has been under question in the era of Covid 19 it's very natural such questions will be asked by common citizen.
Let's try to examine. And we will try to examine the issue in its own context only because if we take a slightest freedom there will be vast distraction from our original topic of discussion. In India at present the top bereaucracy consists of IAS & IPS followed by State Civil & Police Services. For the sake of discussion we are going to confine ourselves to the domain of civil services only where there is a separate bereaucratic framework for the center and the states although personnel of IAS can be shifted to and fro after following certain criteria. This top brass is followed by State Civil Services which are state specific though mobility from state to central sevices is possible after complying with certain provisions with the consultation of the UPSC. The ease of this mobility varies from state to state. Now it's pertinent to note that the entire permanent bereaucracy works under political bosses i.e. the ministers and the ultimate head is the Prime Minister at the center for IAS and the Chief Minster in the state for the State Civil Services and for IAS working in that state . The State Civil Services and their cader officers are mainly responsible for carrying out the programmes and schemes of the governments under the general supervision and control of their IAS bosses who are responsible for devising policies and who ultimately are supervised and controlled by the Departmental Ministers and the PM or the CM as the case may be. Besides these structures there are horizontal branches of Line Departments as those of education, health , education, engineering, agriculture etc which also have to work under the control and supervision of the IAS bosses of the district and the department.
Now we have to examine whether this framework is working properly or not. For arriving at any definite conclusion we must have detail data collected from research works done by independendet actors like university professionals, management institutes and NGOs. In want of any concrete data conclusions arrived at will always be debatable and different interest groups will provide their own unverified data to support their cases. So the first and foremost thing required to be done is to set up research and survey groups consisting of universities' professional researchers, top management institutes' professionals and surveyers and others, but not of bereaurats themselves to examine whether this system of present bereaucratic structure is performing properly or not and if yes then why it is being questioned for its performance or if no then what can be done to restructure the system and what can be done to equip the entire bureaucracy with modern technology based on internet and artificial intelligence. Such research groups must be formed wirh state-center coordination and such groups must include state level experts, and scholars of national and international repute and technological experts and such groups must be provided a time frame and all logistics needed. But there must not be any political or bereaucratic interference and this must be it's pre condition.
Now time has come when we must start thinking and doing something long lasting for bereaucratic reforms. But such changes call for scientific study and whims of anyone can't be allowed to dictate the changes as per his or her wishes .
For today this is sufficient. In our next exploration we'll try to spot some lacunae and their solurions on the basis of the experiences and heuristics of those working in this field.