It is the best State which governs the least. The Laws must be simple and few. But there must be effective implementation of Laws. Laws should not be made in haste. After wide publicity, discussion, after gathering public opinion a Law should be made.
The object of every Law should be for the good of the people. The drafting of the Law should be in a simple language and concise. The common features of the present Laws such as provided that’; ‘except’; ‘not” with standing anything’ should be avoided.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Instead any other section in simple words conveying the same meaning should be brought. This is suggested so that the people and also the civil servants who are supposed to implement the Government policies and Laws can understand easily.
The Law drafters who are legal luminaries may cherish the complicated phrasing. With their training they may understand the meaning in five minutes but the common man will be hit hard to understand the same and often he will be forced to consult a Lawyer. It is better to make the Laws in simple language.
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The Government will be the biggest employer and Government will spend a very heavy percentage of the budget as salaries to the Government employees.
Due attention must be given to the work load on the staff. Some Departments may have a very high work load and many Departments may not have any work load.
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The disparity in the work load of employees in different Departments should be avoided. The set up in the Offices i.e., Junior Assistants, Senior Assistants, Superintendents, Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Secretary, Joint Secretary and Secretary Cadres of posts may be continued. What is to be done is to streamline the work in different Department.
Junior Assistant:
A Junior Assistant should put up a note on a minimum of four to six files a day. Appointments of Junior Assistant by dividing the Office work into different branches and appointing the Junior Assistant in every branch should not be permitted.
It will be a common feature in many offices that, certain sections will not have any work for days together. It is better to work out the work load of the entire office and they appoint Junior Assistants in the ration of files to be handled as suggested bovver.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Depending upon the nature of office work a minimum of Office files to be handled by the junior ”.Assistant, must be fixed and posts should be created according to that work load.
While fixing the work load care should be taken that a Junior Assistant will be at his table working for a minimum of six hours on working days. A period of time should be fixed for the movement of files.
Normally maximum of three days time would be given for the Junior Assistant to dispatch the file from his table. If for any reason the same cannot be done he should bring the circumstances and facts to the notice of the Superintendent of the Office and obtain written permission to retain the file for more than three days.
Senior Assistant:
There must be a Senior assistant for every three or four Junior Assistants, depending upon the nature of work in the office. The Senior Assistant should handle the work which is allotted to him by the Office proceedings or circular. In addition to that he should supervise and guide the Junior Assistants under him in the discharge of their work.
Superintendent:
There should be a Superintendent for every fifteen to twenty Junior Assistants and four to five Senior Assistants. The powers of the Superintendent should be to seen that the staff are properly working and time schedule movement of files is maintained in the Office, and also to keep an eye in the Office attendance etc.,
Higher Administration:
State should divide its functions into well defined departments. Each department should deal with one specific subject.
There should not be any clubbing together and separating of departments under any circumstances. Each department should have one head of the Department.
Right up to the post of head of the Department, the departmental personnel should not be transferred to other departments. Up to the post of the cadre of the Assistant Secretary, normally the civil servants will be in the same department they being in the lower rung.
From the cadre of Deputy Secretary Posts they may be posted to various departments treating them as super cadre posts. This should be avoided.
Super Cadre Officer should be allotted to one department on his posting and he must be continued in the same department till he reaches the post of head of the department. It will be beneficial both ways.
The first is: Super Cadre Officers who are to supervise the work of subordinates will be thorough with the acts, rules, circular and memos issued in the Department at various times.
The moment any representation or file comes to him directly he can form an opinion in most of the cases immediately and in a few new or complicated matters he may take time to acquaint himself with the law, rules etc.
If the Officers above rank of Deputy Secretary are transferred every two years to other departments, the Officer will have neither time nor inclination to be thorough with the act, rule etc., of the department to which he is posted. What happens is, he has to rely on Assistant Secretary and other subordinate staff.
When a matter comes straight to the officer Deputy Secretary cadre, naturally he will mark the file to the concerned section to put up the file with nesting and remarks.
The file will move from the Junior Assistant, Junior Assistant prepares the note noting the relevant Rule, Law and facts and the Superintendent will check the note, he will make his own note and observation then the file will be placed before the Officer with flags of paper in the file and the book of relevant Act and Rules.
The Officer will only go through pages or lines relevant in the pages marked with flags and will simply make an order and sign on it, completely relying on the notes of the subordinates.
The more an Officer is posted in more departments, the less he knows about his department. What will happen is, the subordinate staff i.e., up to the rank of Assistant Secretary will run the establishment in their department.
Most of the superior cadre Officers will not bother to be thorough with the rules, acts and circulars of the Department. If the superior Officers remain ignorant of them, the administration will suffer.
Subordinate Officers will take the matters for granted. It will be too much on Administrators part to expect the superior cadre officers to be through will act, rules etc. shifting them every two to three years to various departments.
That is humanly impossible, to avoid these draw backs. An Officer of any cadre should not be transferred to other-department. Then only citizens can expect and can insist that superior cadre officers be thorough in their subject.
The second advantage will be that the head of the department and higher level officer of the department will be in the know-how of the subordinate staff.
When they are working in the same department continuously the superior officers will certainly have an opportunity to assess the performance of subordinates and promote proper persons in the department, instead of following the thumb rule that the senior most be promoted.
The third advantage will be that the politician’s interference in the day-to-day administration will be checked. At least a strong head of the department will resist the unjust requests and demands of the political leaders.
The political leaders have to remove him from the post, if they want to get their work done. If the transfer outlet is there, the politicians will conveniently shift the head of the department to other department and post an amicable officer and get his work done.
The superior cadre officers will not be super human beings, so that they can be shuffled to various departments under the impression that they can handle any department. This approach is wrong Superior cadre officers may be generally brilliant but it is too much to expect that they can work effectively in any department.
For example Defense, Home, Revenue, education, Panchayat Raj, Planning, Commercial Taxes, Excise, each department is a mini Government. The employees in each department will be in thousands.
There will be hundreds of circulars in addition to the Act and Rules; it will be too much to expect an officer to master them every two or three years on his transfer. In the result the officer has to rely completely on his subordinates.
There will be plenty of scope to play mischief by misleading or suppressing the material facts or Rules by the subordinate staff.
Ultimately the politicians being what they will be and the top civil servants reduced to the ornamental deities, due to frequent transfers, it is the subordinate servants who will be running the administration.
Only in the important matters in which the politicians will be interested or a matter of Government policy do the superior Officers take personal interest and look into the matter.
Otherwise they simply will rely and endorse on the office note of subordinate staff. This type of functioning in Government Departments will result in delays-, corruption and many a time, a deliberate suppression.
“The subordinate Officers should assist the superior Officers and net guide-them.” A. Superior cadre officer must be as thorough as a Section Officer is expected to be thorough regarding the circulars, rules, falling within the framework of his Section. There may be ten Sections in the Office.
The superior cadre officer is expected to be thorough of rules and circulars of all the ten Sections. He must be in a position to catch hold of the erring Section Officer if he tries to mislead him. To have such thoroughness it is essential that the superior cadre officers should be retained only in one Department till he becomes the head of the Department.
The carder of the head of the department must be fixed depending upon the employees in the Department, if the Department is very small one, the Assistant Secretary may be made head of the department if it is a small one the Deputy Secretary may be made head of the department.
If the department is large one Joint Secretary may be made head of the Department. If the Department is a very large one like Revenue, Home, Irrigation and Officer of the cadre of the Secretary may be made Head of the Department.
A head of the department should not be permitted to work as head of the Department for more than, three years after three years he should be absorbed in appropriate post in the Secretariat.
There are some departments in which technically qualified persons will be in employment. Public Health “and Medical Department, Agricultural Department, Veterinary Department, Engineering Department etc.
The head of the Department of such Department should not be a common cadre Officer; it should be only the person who had qualified from profession. Only an Engineer should be head of the Department for Engineering Department.
Only an Agricultural Science Graduate or-Doctor should be the head of the Department of Agricultural Department. Similarly for all such type of other departments. An objection may be raised that professional Degree holders will not be good administrators and that administration, will supper.
It is only an excuse. If the Government fee’s administration will suffer if a professional Degree holder is posted as head of the Department, a Personal Assistant of common cadre officer may be appointed.
A superior common cadre officer or allied cadres should not be permitted to boss over highly qualified Scientists, Doctors, and Engineers etc. An eminent Doctor or Engineer or Scientist has got his own standing in society by his achievements irrespective of the fact whether he is a Government servant or net.
Even if he is not in Government service he will command respect in society as an eminent Scientist, Doctor or Engineer. The same will not be the case with common superior cadre officers.
Such type of superior cadre officers should not be the head of the department where professional degree holders are working. It will be awkward if a common superior cadre officer as head of the department humiliates an eminent scientist or Doctor.
Above the head of the department, there should be Government and Secretariat. The functions of the Government are to lay down the policies, make budget provisions, to make necessary changes in the rules and acts and issue directions to the heads of the Departments.
There must be limited but efficient staff in the Secretariat. Special care must be taken to see that the staff recruited to the Secretariat is well versed with the art of drafting letters, Circulars. Government orders etc., any ambiguity or lapse in the drafting will create a lot of problem resulting in administration delays.
A person should be transferred to the secretariat after he completes three years as head of the Department to the suitable cadre post in the Secretariat. In the Secretariat also it will be better to post an officer in only one Department till he retires.
He will go to the root of the problems, and have a grip in the Department. He will concentrate well and correctly suggest remedial steps that may be taken to rectify the defects. Third Tier i.e., The District administration can be retained in the present form, it is time tested and is working well.
Only one thing has to be done, District Collector need not be made all powerful and all pervading. The district Heads of various Departments should be accountable to their heads of departments.
If necessary the district Collector may convene a joint meeting of the District heads to sort out interdepartmental differences or controversies and the district Collector should be like, a Liaison Officer for all Departments and not a boss.
The district collector should not be over burdened with other work. As a district Magistrate he will have full work in controlling the Police and as head of the Revenue department in the District he will have plenty of work in collection of revenue.
There will be more drastic changes in Taxation which will be discussed later and in view of the changing taxation policy it will be a Herculean task for the revenue Department to collect and maintain accounts of Tax.
Since the collector will be very busy attending to the duties of District Magistrate and collection of revenue and Tax, he should not be burdened with other work.
The village and ward level organization
The State should have an effective organization at the root level. The administration of State and control of the State should be from the village level or ward level in urban areas.
There must be an agent of the State for every population of two thousand people. That Agent should assist the government officers in maintaining the registers of Births and deaths of citizens, in the collection of Government Taxes and all other administration matters. The police constable and his assistants should assist him, though they are not directly subordinates.
The Agent of the State and the Police Constables and his assistants should be responsible for any unlawful activity within their area of operation. The administration should concentrate at the root level.
The root level organization must be Iron clad. Effective records of Birth and deaths, migration, professions of the people, the possible income of the people within their area of operation, any discontent against the State by the people the economic conditions of the people, the moral values of the people and so many other things should be noted by the State agents at village level and ward level.
The State should always control the State from the village and ward level. A state cannot control the country by increasing the top level civil and police posts.