A New India – A Futuristic Approach to Governance & Administration
Introduction
Hello Everyone,
This is an attempt to envision our beloved nation with what every citizen expects, and that is to have a stable, transparent and accountable government, not only in the centre, but also at the very local level.
I am sure that most of us who are intellectuals, educated and capable enough to understand that we alone can bring about this change that we want to see in future India.
Here is what I propose:
· This is a very futuristic thought, but sure to change the way we govern our nation.
Yes folks, we are responsible for governing our homeland.
· I hope if we can implement this idea even in the next 15, 20 or 30 years from now, our kids and their coming generations will never blame us, the way we blame our freedom fighters and other politicians today.
· In order to have a stable government at the centre and have total accountability and transparency in to the day-to-day admin of our beloved nation, I have thought of the following administrative order which can pave the way for a very transparent and effective admin model.
· I think the best way to start would be to have a larger geographical restructure of the internal boundaries. This way we would possibly eliminate the most difficult part of the governance today which is the intra-state cooperation in all areas of development.
· Also, this approach is an attempt to eliminate the red-tape bureaucracy which has cost our nation so dearly in these many years even after independence.
· This approach does not redraw state border lines nor does change anything in the current layout. All it does is creates ZONES for easier admin and control over socio-geographical regions of the country.
§ I have added notes and explanations wherever possible.
· The rest of the debate as to why such an approach, how this will work, its advantages, limitations, etc. are discussed in the later sections.
Hierarchy
· President to be nominated as Head of State having COMPLETE executive, judiciary, and military authority to rule the nation
· PM to be nominated as Chief Administration Officer(CAO); reports directly to Head of State (Pres)
· Each zone to have a Chief Zonal Officer (CZO); All CZOs to report directly to CAO(PM)
· Every CZO to have a Chief Regional Officer (CRO) as direct reports for each state under the zone
· Every CRO to have General Managers (GM) as direct reports to handle state level governance
· Every GM to have subordinate staff depending on the strength, merit, availability and evaluation of each staff member of the area under admin
Zones**
1. North 1: J&K, HP, Punjab, Haryana
2. North 2: Uttarakhand, UP north + UP south
3. West 1: Rajasthan & Gujarat
4. West 2: Maharashtra, Mumbai and Goa
5. East 1: Assam, AP, Manipur, Nagaland
6. East 2: Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya
7. East 3: WB, Sikkim, Bihar, Jharkhand
8. Central 1: MP North + MP South
9. Central 2: Chhattisgarh & Orissa
10. South 1: Karnataka, Andhra
11. South 2: TN, Kerala
12. Union Territory*: All UTs are responsibility of the zonal officers covering those states EXCEPT Delhi / NCR which is admin directly under the Chief Admin Officer(PM)*
a. *Andaman/Nicobar and Pondicherry would be covered by Andhra & TN, while Lakshadweep would be covered by Karnataka & Kerala
b. *Chandigarh would be covered by Punjab & Haryana
c. *Dadra, Daman & Diu would be covered by Gujarat & Maharashtra
** Note that all the state capitals and other tier-II & tier-III cities and towns retain their statuses as is. In fact each major city should have a dedicated CRO. More of this is discussed in the later sections.
Administrative Structure (CZO and CRO allocations as per zones described above):
1. North 1: 4 CRO + 1 CZO + 1 Deputy CRO (Chandigarh)
2. North 2: 3 CRO + 1 CZO
3. West 1: 2 CRO + 1 CZO
4. West 2: 3 CRO + 1 CZO + 1 Deputy CRO (Dadra, Daman &Diu)
5. East 1: 4 CRO + 1 CZO
6. East 2: 3 CRO + 1 CZO
7. East 3: 4 CRO + 1 CZO
8. Central 1: 2 CRO – report to combined CZO -Central
9. Central 2: 2 CRO – report to combined CZO –Central
10. South 1: 2 CRO + 1 CZO + 1 Deputy CRO (Andaman/Nicobar and Pondicherry)
11. South 2: 2 CRO + 1 CZO + 1 Deputy CRO (Lakshadweep)
Election Model
· To begin with, the toughest and possibly the mightiest challenge, is to ABOLISH the multi-party, multi-regional, multi-union, etc. concept from our constitution. The rationale for this idea is as below:
§ Today, any tom-dick-harry can float a political party with minimum supporters of 10.
§ This so-called ‘democratic’ right has been abused to the fullest and is the root cause of the ‘bhel-puri’ governments that we have been facing over past 10 years.
§ These smaller regional parties eventually merge into the larger parties after the elections, so as to have enough share of the pie.
§ Same is the case with all major trade unions, student unions and other regional party-based unions.
§ All this put together, and we have a total chaotic and misleading picture at the centre today.
§ To remove the problem from the root, the best way is to simply eliminate the concept of this multi-party, multi-union, multi-this, multi-that approach and instead have complete participation from the people i.e. Us, so that we can create enough awareness among others who don’t understand much about electing their representative and thus get duped by powerful conmen.
· So the idea is –
§ No candidate belongs to any party or group of parties, and so there is no concept of a ‘party’ getting elected as a single largest party.
§ Each candidate fights the elections on his/her own merit, performance, experience and ability – just as one would apply for a job, be it a post of CEO or a clerk.
· So the obvious question is how to choose the right representative?
§ Have a panel of eminent citizens, along with other representatives from the public service, specially retired officials & bureaucrats.
§ These panels will select their candidates as below.
· All CZOs, CROs, and GMs are elected directly via the General elections and the process for electing them could be as below:
§ General Managers (GM) – District / City level governance:
a) To be elected directly via the general electorate as a Head of City/District or related area as survey marked by the EC.
§ The existing GMs would be converted to ‘care-taker authorities’ and considered as fresh applicants, with effect from the date of announcement of the election dates.
b) The eligibility criteria for selection of candidates would be created and agreed upon consensus by a panel of eminent citizens residing in that city/district/region.
§ This panel should include eminent people from all areas of society like corporate heads, artists, journalists, teachers/professors/educationists, doctors/medical professionals, bankers/financial experts, social workers, police officials, lawyers, retired government officers, etc.
§ This panel will operate on a public-private participation model and the candidates would be shortlisted via a process of interviews, group discussions, and public debates.
§ This way we, the people, can directly participate in the selection of our local representative.
c) List of shortlisted eligible and prospective candidates for the GM and the subordinate staff would be published by the panel, post the selection process.
d) Any conflicts, controversies or difference of opinion will have to be resolved by the panel in coordination with the public-private partnership. Any further escalation of the issue should be resolved by city/district level Law Commission; which can also redirect the matter to the State High Court. The participation of the EC would be required at this stage to resolve the issue.
e) Once elected, the GM will have to propose the selection of his/her subordinate staff from the available shortlisted candidates.
§ This list of the subordinate staff would contain only the managerial candidates. The support staff for these managers would be selected by a formal interview process, with or without public-private partnership depending upon the seniority of the position and the area under admin.
§ Other citizens who wish to join this level of public service should be encouraged to apply directly to the selection panel mentioned above.
§ Chief Regional Officers (CRO) – State level governance:
a) To be elected via the general electorate, in coordination with the above mentioned panel and the GM-select candidates for that state, as a Head of State or related area as survey marked by the EC.
§ The existing CROs would be converted to ‘care-taker authorities’ and considered as fresh applicants, with effect from the date of announcement of the election dates.
b) The eligibility criteria for selection of candidates would be created and agreed upon consensus by the above mentioned panel, representing that state.
§ The panelists would be selected by consensus of the city/district level panelists along with the active participation of the GM-select candidates.
§ This panel will also operate on the public private partnership model and the candidates will be shortlisted via a process of interviews, group discussions and public debates.
c) List of shortlisted eligible and prospective candidates for the CRO and the subordinate GM staff would be published by the panel, post the selection process.
d) Any conflicts, controversies or difference of opinion will have to be resolved by the panel in coordination with the public-private partnership. Any further escalation of the issue should be resolved by State level Law Commission; which can also redirect the matter to the State High Court. The participation of the EC would be required at this stage to resolve the issue.
e) Once elected, the CRO will have to propose the selection of his/her subordinate GM staff from the available shortlisted candidates.
§ This list of the subordinate staff would contain only the GM candidates. The selection process will be the same as above – interviews, group discussions and public debates.
§ Other citizens who wish to join this level of public service should be encouraged to apply directly to the selection panel mentioned above.
§ Chief Zonal Officer (CZO) – Zone level governance:
a) To be elected via the general electorate, in coordination with the above mentioned panel and the CRO-select candidates for that state, as a Head of State or related area as survey marked by the EC.
§ The existing CZOs would be converted to ‘care-taker authorities’ and considered as fresh applicants, with effect from the date of announcement of the election dates.
b) The eligibility criteria for selection of candidates would be created and agreed upon consensus by the above mentioned panel, representing that state.
§ The panelists would be selected by consensus of the city/district level panelists along with the active participation of the CRO-select candidates.
§ This panel will also operate on the public private partnership model and the candidates will be shortlisted via a process of interviews, group discussions and public debates.
c) List of shortlisted eligible and prospective candidates for the CZO and the subordinate CRO staff would be published by the panel, post the selection process.
d) Any conflicts, controversies or difference of opinion will have to be resolved by the panel in coordination with the public-private partnership. Any further escalation of the issue should be resolved by State level Law Commission; which can also redirect the matter to the State High Court. The participation of the EC would be required at this stage to resolve the issue.
e) Once elected, the CZO will have to propose the selection of his/her subordinate CRO staff from the available shortlisted candidates.
§ This list of the subordinate staff would contain only the CRO candidates. The selection process will be the same as above – interviews, group discussions and public debates.
§ Other citizens who wish to join this level of public service should be encouraged to apply directly to the selection panel mentioned above.
· The Head of State and CAO are elected via collective consensus of a panel consisting of all CZOs, all CROs, Senior Defense/Army/Police personnel, Chief Justice, Chief Election Commissioner, Corporate Representatives, and other eminent citizens which the panel can choose to include.
§ The selection criteria and parameters are chosen by the panel depending upon the prevailing conditions of the nation at the time of election.
Officers and Support Staff Limitations
Staff limits
· A zone can have a maximum of 2 CZOs and 6 CROs, so a CZO can have a maximum of 6 CROs, and every additional CZO can have a maximum of 2 CROs but the total number of CROs per zone cannot exceed 6.
· Any additional CZO / CRO appointment has to be approved by the CAO and the Pres; any debate or difference of opinion should be resolved by the CAO and/or Pres along with the Election commission. The decision can be challenged in the apex court by the concerned CZO/CRO.
· All additional CZOs and CROs would be appointed as Deputies for the zone/region.
· A CRO can have a maximum of 10 GMs and 2 additional GMs; additional GMs would be Deputy GMs, to be appointed in consultation with CZO and CAO.
· Each GM can have a maximum staff of 500 which includes managerial/non-managerial, technical/non-technical, back-office, admin and clerical staff; additional GMs can have a maximum staff of 200 including the criteria above for GMs
Key Manageable Areas
· A state CRO has to appoint GMs depending upon the major areas within the region.
· Each major city in the region (state) becomes the Key Manageable Area (KMA) for the GM and his/her support staff.
· For example:
§ Maharashtra has cities other than Mumbai (Mumbai will get a separate CRO) viz. Pune, Nasik, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, etc.
§ So the Maharashtra CRO could appoint minimum of 5 GMs to handle these KMAs.
§ The other smaller districts and towns can be covered under these KMAs or have a separate GM, depending upon the size and population of the area. As per the appointing criterion, it could have 5 more GMs.
§ The maximum 500 staff depends on several factors of the area of admin like educated & non-educated population, evaluated candidates, merit and other credibility of the candidates, etc.
§ The managerial staff can have subordinate staff in consultation with the GMs; the number is dynamic and depends totally on the area under admin.
§ This structure can be applied to the district level admin, with the GMs getting DIRECTLY involved in the day-to-day affairs of the district. This will help build accountability and transparency into the whole admin process.
§ The non-managerial staff can be utilized to the fullest capability to execute projects based on priority.
Responsibilities in a nutshell
(*Sector-wise responsibilities like Finance, Education, Security (Defense), etc. discussed in the later sections)
· The Head of State (President):
§ Has complete executive, judiciary, and military powers as chief of nation
§ Supreme Commander of armed forces; Can declare war
§ Territorial security of the country
§ Supreme Court and all other judicial institutions
§ Bills & Acts and other amendments to the Constitution; HAS to consider views of the CAO and the Chief Justice before any major judicial or socio-political amendment
§ Performance of all the defense chiefs of staff – can choose to appoint, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of these personnel
§ Performance of the CAO (direct) and/or CZOs (indirect) – can choose to appoint, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of the CAO/CZOs
§ Can overrule ANY decision of the CAO and/or CZOs
§ Can choose to appoint additional CZOs and/or CROs in consultation or recommendation of the CAO
§ The CAO can appeal against the Pres decision in the apex court in consultation with the chief justice
· The CAO (PM):
§ The overall admin, welfare of the country; includes economic, financial and developmental stability, internal security and growth of the nation
§ The overall welfare of the nation is the computed average of the development of the zones defined; hence the CAO is also accountable for the annual average performance ratings of all zones.
§ Responsible for the performance of the CZOs and/or CROs, whom he/she can choose to appoint, allocate/reallocate, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of the CZO/CROs
§ Can choose to appoint additional CZOs and/or CROs in consultation or recommendation of the Pres
§ CZOs & CROs can appeal against the CAOs decision to the Pres; who in turn can either direct them to a court of law or take a decision using his/her discretion within the constitution.
· The CZO:
§ The overall admin, welfare of the zone; includes economic, financial and developmental stability, territorial security and growth of the zone.
§ The overall welfare of the zone is the computed average of the development of the regions; hence the CZO is also accountable for the annual average performance ratings of all regions under the zone.
§ Responsible for the performance of the CROs and/or GMs, whom he/she can choose to appoint, allocate/reallocate, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of the CRO/GMs
§ Can choose to appoint additional CROs and/or GMs in consultation or recommendation of the CAO
§ CROs & GMs can appeal against the CZOs decision to the CAO; who in turn can either redirect them to the Pres or a court of law or take a decision using his/her discretion within the constitution.
· The CRO:
§ The overall admin, welfare of the region i.e. the state they have been elected for; includes economic, financial and developmental stability, territorial security and growth of the zone.
§ The overall welfare of the region or state is the computed average of the development of all the areas covered by the state; hence the CRO is also accountable for the annual average performance ratings of all areas under the region (state).
§ Responsible for the performance of the GMs, whom he/she can choose to appoint, allocate / reallocate, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of the GMs
§ Can choose to appoint additional GMs in consultation or recommendation of the CZO & CAO
§ GMs & their subordinate staff can appeal against the CROs decision to the CZO and/or the CAO; who in turn can either redirect them to the Pres or a court of law or take a decision using his/her discretion within the constitution.
· The GM:
§ The overall admin, welfare of the area as allocated i.e. the city/district they have been elected for; includes economic, financial and developmental stability, territorial security and growth of the allocated area.
§ The overall welfare of the region or state is the computed average of the development of all the areas covered by the state; hence the GM is also accountable for the annual average performance ratings of the areas.
§ Responsible for the performance of the GMs, whom he/she can choose to appoint, allocate / reallocate, monitor and terminate; Can choose to interfere with day-to-day affairs of the GMs
§ Can choose to appoint additional GMs in consultation or recommendation of the CZO & CAO
§ Their GMs subordinate staff can appeal against the GMs decision to the CRO and/or the CZO; who in turn can either redirect them to the CAO and/or Pres, or a court of law, or take a decision using his/her discretion within the constitution.
Sector-wise Governance and Decision-making Process
· As the final executive authority, the Head of State (Pres) is responsible for policy making and planning for all departments.
· The Pres can delegate a part of this responsibility to the CAO, who is helped by the collective cabinet of the CZOs.
· The CAO and the CZOs together would be responsible for framing the various policies of the nation. For this, they would create a group of experienced policy makers and advisors, in consultation with the Pres. This group, may or may not have a direct subordinate staff (discussed later), but would work in conjunction with the CAO & CZOs to define and design the various national policies.
· This will eliminate the need to create a whole bunch of ministries and introduce lack of accountability and a red-tape to the whole governance structure.
· For the sake of naming this group as an example, let’s name it as the ‘National Advisory and Planning Group’ or NAPG.
· The Pres, CAO and CZO together would appoint Chief Advisors for each of this sector. These chief advisors will directly work with the CZOs and the respective CROs for collecting information & data for their planning.
· If required, these Chief Advisors can appoint their subordinate staff; the limits and other criteria should be decided in consultation with the Pres, CAO and CZOs.*
a) *This part is debatable, as there is scope of increasing the very hierarchy that this model tries to reduce.
b) *It totally depends on the situation at hand when deciding for such staff.
c) *Instead, we could go for direct sharing of data between the two offices, i.e. the office of the chief advisor for that sector and the CZOs.
d) *This will create transparency and accountability between the offices.
· This way, we can eliminate a HUGE level of hierarchy and bureaucracy which has eaten up this country from within like termites.
· This approach can then be applied at every State level, wherein the CROs can delegate the sector responsibilities to their GM staff.
· So each GM can have managerial staff to look after each of these sectors and this data can directly go to the Chief Advisor of that sector at the national level via the CRO and/or CZO.
· This way we can eliminate the need for any particular data to go through secretaries and under secretaries and sub-secretaries, etc, etc, etc.
· This will also help the CZOs and the CAO to get the correct ground reality data which in today’s scenario is simply not possible.
· With respect to today’s ministerial setup, note how the different ministries will become obsolete and redundant once this structure is implemented, since what matters at the end of the day is the decision making and implementation on ground.
· That means that the NAPG would be covering the following national sectors for planning and advising the CAO and the CZOs on.
§ Agriculture – covers min. of agriculture, foods & drugs, agrochemicals & fertilizers, food processing industries
§ Aviation – covers min. of civil and commercial aviation, airports & airport authority, govt. owned airlines and airline carriers
§ Business & Corporate Affairs – covers all PSUs, all business enterprises & corp. laws; includes small & medium enterprises, all small, medium and heavy industries (other than food, drug and agrochemical & fertilizers), labor & employment, covers min of steel and textile
§ Commerce & Economics – all other commercial establishments which cannot be covered by the Business & Corp. Affairs sector, consumer affairs, handles all socio-economic data and information processing, relies heavily on the inputs from all sectors for forecasting and analysis
§ Defense – covers min. of defense and all army/navy/air-force staff, BSF, all defense commandments and ordnances
§ Finance – covers min. of finance, all banks and fin. institutions, credit houses, revenue, taxes, expenditure
§ External Affairs – covers. min of external affairs, extradition, passports, citizenship, immigration
§ Human Resources & Social Welfare – covers min of health & family welfare, housing & infrastructure development (other than road transport and highways), youth & sports, women & child dev, urban & rural development, minority & tribal affairs, min of culture
§ Law & Order – covers min of home, min. of law, dept of justice, bar council, all police, internal security, judicial other than Supreme Court, parliamentary affairs, public grievances, personnel & pension affairs, panchayat raj* (this would be obsolete since it would come directly under the purview of the respective GMs for that district)
§ Natural Resources & Environment Sciences – covers min of power, petro & natural gas, water, forests, coal, dept of environment and meteorology and all other natural resources, mining
§ Science & Technology – covers min of telecom, IT, research, space, energy & atomic energy
§ Tourism & Transport – covers min of railways, all transports, highways, shipping, transport related infrastructure
· This approach can be applied by the GMs to appoint Managers for their respective areas within the state.
· Although there would be some changes in the state-level sectors like, Defense & External Affairs can be removed; Law & Order can cover for Police/Internal Security, etc.
Autonomy
· There has been lots of discussion and controversy on autonomy being provided to states or not. To sort this out and to have better control over the autonomous regions in the country, this is what I propose:
· The Zones, as defined earlier, are granted partial autonomy, meaning that the zones can decide on their economic, financial and developmental frameworks, with or without support from the centre.
· This also means that the zones cannot override any major decision from the centre, be it economic, financial, commercial, judicial, military, etc.
· This concept has been approved and applied in many countries around the world, including Europe and North America.
· It might sound clichéd, but this looks to be a much feasible and viable solution, with some clear apparent advantages. A few of them are listed below:
a) The states individually don’t get any autonomy, but their respective zone does get a partial one.
b) So if the states would be bound to perform better if they want their zone’s autonomy to show results.
c) Also, since the zone can design its autonomous framework, the rules will be applicable to all states under the zone, which makes application and ground enforcement that much easier.
d) Better performing zones can get incentives from centre, like tax holidays, SEZs, travel and tourism priorities, etc.
e) With better performing zones as results, other zones can pick up a case study and customize their frameworks, thereby creating healthy competition and the end result could be a win-win situation for all.
Now the big questions
1. What happens to the current staff and departmental setup?
§ The current staff will be clubbed as ONE government staff, so the segregation of State Govt. & Central Govt. staff would be removed
§ All staff working in a particular state or region would come under the purview of the respective GM for that region
§ The reshuffling of the staff would happen based on the managerial & non-managerial positions defined by the GMs and the respective CROs of the states
§ As mentioned earlier, the departmental setup would be reshuffled and would be covered by the GMs in accordance with the NAPG requirements
§ All existing positions would be relooked and reshuffled or left as is, based on the past performance of the officers occupying them.
2. What happens to the state level departments, assemblies, secretariats?
§ The state level depts. would have to be reorganized based on the NAPG sector design
§ The state level assembly gets converted into a regional office controlled by the respective CRO and the GMs for that state
§ The assembly staff gets covered by the GM as mentioned in answer to 1 above and the secretariats & their staff are dissolved and converted into managerial positions for respective areas or sectors, whichever way possible.
3. What can we as common people do?
§ The answer to this is very simple – it’s all got to do with us!
§ It’s the common man that has to spark the change, and we need to start somewhere.
§ So I urge all of us like-minded people who want to make this change a reality, who know that we can do it together, and who want to be a part of this change.
§ In fact, it’s not about change; it’s about doing the right thing.
§ I am not going to borrow Obama’s words, but we need to start and it’s now.
§ So here is what each of us can do:
§ Dedicate just a few hours every weekend, normally when we are not doing anything specific and spending time with friends & family.
§ What to discuss? Well, there is whole lot of stuff that can be discussed if we really see the need.
§ To start with, gather family and friends and neighbors and try to set up local groups for evaluating the prospective candidates.
§ In fact, this election campaign time was the right time to take such activities. But all these days, we always worry about it in the end, and so we are left with very few choices to vote for, and eventually we crib about their performance in the coming years.
§ Instead, if all of us can vow to start this activity on a smaller level, sooner or later, there will be groups across the locality, then the city, and eventually the state & the country.
§ That’s what the vision of this article is – to bring about the very change that we keep talking and discussing about, but finally no action is taken on ground. And this is EXACTLY what our politicians take advantage of – ‘cause they know that come tomorrow morning, everything will be past and people will forget about it.
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