MinistryDepartment
Headed by MinisterHeaded by Secretary
has multiple departmentsunder a ministry
  • Home Affairs Ministry has max depts (07), followed by Finance Ministry (06)

Problems

  • 17 ministries at time of independence, but 57 now
  • rapid expansion due to political factors
    • not resulted in any significant improvements in overall efficiency of administration
  • problems:
    • conflict between ministries, depts. over their duties
    • duplication of work
    • problems related to coordiantion
    • red tapism
    • time and cost overruns and overall inefficiency
  • 2nd ARC: each ministry has 16 different hierarchical levels wherein at every level, the concerned official has absolute veto power, making administration inefficient

Solutions

  • 2nd ARC: reduce ministries from 57 to 27
    • merge similar performing ministries into one
    • create more depts to ensure better coordination
  • PM GATI SHAKTI Yojna
    • to ensure timely completion of infra projects thru PPP Model
    • coordination
    • fixed time limits
    • continuous performance monitoring
  • 2nd ARC: reduce hierarchical levels from 16 to 4

Other Reforms

  • E governance
  • lateral entry
  • citizen charters mandatory for all depts. and ministries
  • strict RTI implementation
  • objective performance evaluation of bureaucracy thru Social Audit Committees
  • De politicization of civil services
  • single window clearances to reduce red tapism, inefficiency
  • fixing time limits for bureaucrats to complete their responsibilities
  • merit based promotions

Our secretariat has inverse pyramid, wherein max bureaucrats working at top level in policy formulation. On other hand, very few officers at field level in policy implementation.

  • 2nd ARC recommended pyramid be reversed
    • max bureaucrats should be at field levels
  • meritorious bureaucrats must be promoted to secretariat orgs