Cover Story
Taking govt
to people
Mohan Guruswamy
Delhi is abuzz that Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
is planning to unveil a
slew of administrative reforms
to make India’s creaking public
administration apparatus more
responsive to the citizenry, more
effective in the delivery of services
and more accountable.
To start with, he has just had
inducted over a dozen joint
secretary level officers into the
central bureaucracy. But the real
problem with India’s government
is not at this tier of government.
As a matter of fact at this tier our
bureaucracy is pretty good and is
not lacking by much. Our need for
government is at the tier closest
to the people. It is this tier that
needs buttressing and it is here that
government has to go down closer
to the people.
The nerve ends of our public
administration don’t reach down to
the millions of villages and localities
of urban India. Where is the
government when plastic choked
drains are to be cleaned? Where is
the government when a leaky tap
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February 2020 | www.smartgovernance.in