8/12/2019 Both the Congress & BJP Need to Learn Lessons in
Government Failure
1/2
Log in
Forgot your password? Forgot your username? Create an accoun
Both the Congress & BJP need to Learn Lessons in Government
Failure
Created on Sunday, 01 June 2014 07:37
Image courtesy: www.free-power-point-templates.com
It is time for introspection for almost every entity against the
backdrop of the unbelievable verdict of the Indian electorate
Introspection can help the vanquished party embrace failure as
the stepping stone for its resurrection. The same failure can
also serve as a warning signal for victor who often loses vision
due to heady success. After all, wisdom is the art of learning
from the mistakes o f others and avoiding a repea t of ones own
follies.
The new ruling party BJP wants to first learn about the pitfalls
of bad governance from UPAs trusted civil servants. The Cabinet
Secre tary has
reportedly asked secretaries of all ministries to specify what
went wrong with the UPA regime and what they would have done if
they had the full
freedom to perform.
It is good for BJP to get an insight into self-created hurdles
that led to the UPAs ignoble exit. It is equally or perhaps more
important for the BJP to
draw lessons from its past failures committed during the
previous NDA regimes. We will discuss the list of donts for NDA
later in his column.
Milind Deora, a Congress leader who served as a Minister in the
UPA, has pitched for ruthless introspection by his party. The
Congress
President, Sonia Gandhi, has reportedly acknowledged that there
was widespread anger against us which we failed to adequately
gauge. The
other day she stated: we have to individually and collectively
draw the appropriate lessons from this unprecedented setback.Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) is also drawing lessons from crashing of its
dream to catapult to the Centre on the strength of its impress ive
show at Delh
Assembly polls. Regional political parties including the
castes-driven ones are also in the soul-searching mode.
There are certain lessons that should be valued both by losing
parties and the NDA that has got a chance to govern by cashing in
on the
aspirations and frustrations of the masses.
For this, they should all turn to a Planning Commissions working
paper captioned titled Lessons of Government Failure: Public Goods
Provision
and Quality of Public Investment authored by reputed economist,
Dr. Arvind Virmani in February 2006. The paper was perhaps written
with a
foresight about precipice of disaster towards which the UPA was
heading under the guidance of parallel and super-cabinet, National
Advisory
Council (NAC) cha ired by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.
After analyzing the countrys macro-economic policies and growth
from 1950 onwards, the first lesson that Dr. Virmani deduced is:
The
government is neither omniscient (all knowing) nor omnipotent
(all powerful) nor omni-competent. Even with the best of
intentions and motivations it can and does fail spectacularly.
More commonly it has traits that are the opposite of those
commonly assumed by those who expect government to solve any and
all problems.
BJP should take this lesson as the guiding mantra for good
governance keeping in view the fact that political power breeds
arrogance. It must
institutionalize channels of feedback from all sources.
The omni lesson aptly applies to UPA, which haughtily believed
that impoverished Indian masses liked to eat from the hands of the
Congress. So it
banked heavily on National Food Security Act and an increase in
number of subsidized LPG cylinders, etc. as the powerful
allurements for the
public to gloss over the bad governance and endemic
corruption.
The Congress Party exuded confidence that it could win the next
two Lok Sabha elect ions due to pure magic called Aadhar-enabled
transfer of
benefits to the poor people. It believed its dole-outs strategy
was panacea for its failure to create work opportunities for the
unemployed and
under-employed youth.
With Rajmata syndrome, the UPA ministers had become highly
arrogant. The Government hardly ever acknowledged the fact it
passed off wrong
information as facts to the public. It excelled in distorting
facts. It excelled in giving an e rroneous picture about its
achievements.
All these charges have been elaborated and backed with concrete
instances in previous ice cubes columns over the last few
years.
UPA only selectively adopted public consultative process for
policy formulation. Crucial policy decisions were taken or reversed
without any public
consultation. UPA never practiced s incere and effective
communication. It only wallowed in propaganda.
Some of the UPA stalwarts were allergic to rational criticism.
Recall UPAs Communications Minister Kapil Sibals zero loss theory
to trash CAG
report on 2G scam. Recall how Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
dismissed presumptive losses computed by CAG in 2G and Coalgate
scams as
myth.
Recall the fact that Chidambaram smothered prospects of probing
questions at his press conferences by disallowing supplementary to
aquestion. Most of the press conferences and interactions of the
UPA top brass were managed in such a manner so as to avoid ticklish
issues and
thus present a good image about the working of the Government.
Can anyone recall one tough question ever put to Mrs. Gandhi? But
many
citizens will recall how the countrys two leading TV channels
vied to confer award on Mrs. Gandhi, thereby crossing Lakshman
Rehka of ethical
journa lism.
Those who can ask probing ques tions were systematically denied
an oppo rtunity to put a question. Some of them were simply not
invited for
interaction. A few journalists have thus opted out of such
interactions whose sole objective is spruce up the image of
ministers and not
communicate to the public through the media.
UPA thus believed that it could manage public opinion through
Goebbelian tactics and by pinning faith on its band of trusted
journalists.
To be fa ir to the Congress, some of the BJP ministers also
behaved in a similar fashion especia lly during the second te rm of
the NDA Government.
The Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi thus needs to reinvent the
entire Governments decis ion-making and communicat ion process to
avoid losing
the publics enviable faith in his leadership.
Unlike the UPA, NDA should not pay lip-service to transparency.
It should make public consultation-driven decision-making process
its governance
mantra. It ought to proactively disclose all information
excluding defence and home secrets. The system of open governance
can ensure that the
NDA does not operate like an omniscient, omnipotent and
omni-competent authority.
Home About me Media Blog Archive Video Gallery Photo Gallery
Search...
http://nareshminocha.com/http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/typographyhttp://nareshminocha.com/index.php/2011-06-13-09-13-35http://nareshminocha.com/index.phphttp://nareshminocha.com/index.phphttp://nareshminocha.com/index.phphttp://nareshminocha.com/index.php/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&template=ja_edenite&link=b6e92ca00a42f2d1161489163d3afbc88743ddb4http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/governance/1653-both-the-congress-bjp-need-to-learn-lessons-in-government-failure?tmpl=component&print=1&page=http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/2011-06-13-09-13-35http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/typographyhttp://nareshminocha.com/http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/using-joomla/extensions/components/users-component/registration-formhttp://nareshminocha.com/index.php/using-joomla/extensions/components/users-component/username-reminderhttp://nareshminocha.com/index.php/using-joomla/extensions/components/users-component/password-resethttp://nareshminocha.com/index.php
8/12/2019 Both the Congress & BJP Need to Learn Lessons in
Government Failure
2/2
You are here: Home Governance Both the Congress & BJP need
to Learn Lessons in Government Failure Top
Copyright 2014 www.nareshminocha.com. All Rights Reserved.
Designed by VectraImage.com.
Send
JComments
Next >
The second lesson drawn by Dr. Virmani is that The role of
Private consumption in economic growth and poverty reduction can be
more important
than that o f Government/Public Consumption.
If we apply this lesson to UPA, it would mean that UPA erred by
being obsessively focused on increasing investment on social
welfare without any
improvement in the effectiveness of such investment. It
increased the dimensions of subsidies including outright grants. It
wasted money by
repeatedly funding certain public enterprises that are basket
cases. It covered up public sector banks non-performing assets
(NPAs) with fresh
infusion of Government money. It pampered environmental and
leftist act ivists who viewed pro jects as symbols of corporate
greed and not as job
avenues.
Such over-indulgence in the misconce ived inclusive agenda
reduced the size of investments in creation of productive
investments that would have
not only generated job opportunities but a lso resources in the
form of taxes and dividend.
An important observation made by Dr. Virmani in his paper is
that: Pet theories and vested interest can drive public
investment
not only into the most unprofitable activities but also into the
most socially unproductive channels, with everything being
justified in the name of the poor and the public.
An apt instance of this observation is the proposed project for
reintroduction of Cheetah in the country at reported cost of
Rs260-300 crore at
the behest of a few wildlife enthus iasts. Nobody in the UPA
asked whether this money can be utilized profitability to reduce
poverty and generate
employment.
Cheetah, which became extinct in the country at the time of the
Independence, is just one instance of the many dubious investments
that UPA
made by showing utter contempt for zero-base budgeting.
NDA must weed out unproductive and wasteful expenditure by
ruthlessly applying zero-base budgeting principle to a ll schemes
and programmes
The thumb rule for continuation of any investment or sanction of
new schemes should be what would happen if the Government does not
invest
and whether the money can be invested in better ways
elsewhere.
As put by Dr. Virmani, the solution to this problem of
governance is to free the people, non-profit organisation,
entrepreneurs and companies to
do what they can do best and to focus the governments limited
resources, attention span and time on functions that only the
government can
do. This is to supply public goods & services and to ensure
the supply of quasi-public goods (particularly those having
production externalities) up
to a level at which the social benefits equals cos t of
provision.
Coming to the pitfalls the NDA should avoid, it must shed or at
least whittle down the ostentatious style of working that became
the trademark of
the UPA. The swearing-in ceremony of the NDA should be the first
and last decision of the NDA to splurge the public money on
image-building.
NDA must create an institutional mechanism of internal audit of
the conduct of its ministers. This would help Mr. Modi nip in bud
any ministersimpropriety. He should not hesitate to drop a few
tainted ministers as and when any tangible development about their
past misdeeds surfaces.
Unlike Dr. Manmohan Singh, Mr. Modi cannot flaunt the coalition
dharma to rationa lize indecisiveness in tackling corruption in the
top echelons o f
the Government.
Above all, NDA and BJP in particular must be wary of sting
operation that Congress-aligned journalists would definitely
conduct
to expose corruption in the new Government.
Another big challenge before Mr. Modi is to rein in the loud
mouths in the BJP and its supporting entities from making
statements that give
setback to the achievement of the historic mandate for work,
prosperity and peace for all.
Published by taxindiaonline.com on 28th May 2014
http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/inside2.php3?filename=bnews_detail.php3&newsid=20530
ADD COMMENT
Name (required)
E-mail (required, but w ill not d isplay)
Website
Notify me of follow-up comments
Refresh
http://www.vectraimage.com/http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/governancehttp://nareshminocha.com/http://www.joomlatune.com/http://nareshminocha.com/index.php/governance/823-bad-governance-peaks-upa-banks-on-dole-outshttp://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/inside2.php3?filename=bnews_detail.php3&newsid=20530
