Administrative reforms:

--Leena Mehendale

1] Planning of  education should be  truly oriented to Development of  Human Resource and not merely as "yet another sector"

2] Area vs. sector administration: stress should shift back on former as it promotes coordination.

3] Rules of financial discipline are based on theory of disbelief introduced by the British 100 years back and not followed in their own country now.

4] Computers are used in a style that is clerk friendly but not policy friendly;  the method and design of data base creation does not give necessary clues to policy planners.

5] Systems have gone into disuse for lack of "maintenance". Rather than improving that we are creating new organizations hoping that their parallel working will be so much better that it will surpass all the problems of the regular system.

6] A lone Sheshan or Khairnar cannot reform the whole system (ref Mr. Shouri's article) Replication is possible by continuous training of senior officers with vertical and horizontal integration modules.

7] Executive, both bureaucratic and political are abducting and going for soft solutions.

8] Functioning of Govt. at Central govt. level is breeding tremendous frustration among Jt. Secretary level officials.

9] Inadequate  use of TV medium for vocational education, heath, women issues, literacy.

10] Administration lacks the technique to involve people or to strengthen the civil society.

(I make a distinction between NGOs and civil society)

11] Among the theories of financial management there is a concept that partial investment must start giving partial returns. This is not followed in govt.

12] “No punishment to the wrong doer: only compensation to victim” cuts at the very root of the concept of governance.

13] Supervisory and monitoring skills are lacking.

14] Reforms including honesty of purpose must start from above.

15] These  reforms need to be taken up in totality.