Administrative Reforms Commission Report

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), headed by M. Veerappa Moily, in its 12th report, released on March 25, 2009, stated that the bureaucracy in India is generally perceived to be “unresponsive, insensitive and corrupt” and a common complaint against it pertains to excessive red-tapism.

Poor Quality of Services
In its 12th report, the Commission stated that during its visits to the States, it interacted with a large number of people and most of them complained of the poor quality of services provided by the Government, the indifferent attitude of Government servants, corruption and abuse of authority and the lack of accountability. “The reasons for Governments not being citizen centric can be attributed to the attitude and work of some government servants, the deficiencies in existing institutional structures and also to some citizens,” the report stated.

While the laws made by the legislature may be sound and relevant, very often they are not properly implemented by Government functionaries, it stated. The institutional structure provided at times may be also weak and ill conceived and thus has neither the capacity nor the resources to implement the laws in letter and spirit, the report stated.

Problems of Excessive Centralisation
The report stated that the system often suffers from problems of excessive centralisation and policies and action plans are far removed from the needs of the citizens. This results in a mismatch between what is required and what is being provided,” it stated.

The Commission observed that there was a growing concern that the civil services and administration in general had become “wooden, inflexible, self perpetu ating and inward looking”.
The report further stated that consequently their attitude is one of indifference and insensitivity to the needs of citizens. This, coupled with the enormous asymmetry in the wielding of power at all levels, has further aggravated the situation. The end result is that officers perceive themselves as dispensing favours to citizens rather than serving them.