(PYQ Mock Answer: Polity governance/Public administration) Overburdened District collector

Q. “Reducing the size of the district will provide relief to the overburdened & overworked Collector”. Comment. (2013) 

Answer:

Since the introduction of the office of the District Collector by Warren Hastings, the district collector has played a central role in district administration and till date remains the kingpin of the administration at District level. The notion of reducing the size of the district would provide some relief to the over worked and over burdened district collector, as smaller district size means less people and less area under the district collectors jurisdiction. But however, this solution might not provide a great relief as the collector is overburdened because of the plethora of functions he/she is expected to perform. 

The functions of District collector involves (to name a few): Law and administration, smooth conduct of elections right from parliamentary to local self government elections, enumeration of census, taking care of the needs of the visiting VIPs as the protocol officers, monitoring implementation of welfare and development schemes of the centre and the state, ensuring coordination between various departments of the district administration etc. 

Solution/Way forward:

Solely reducing the size of the district will seldom reduce the workload of the collector. To reduce the work load, the functions performed by the district collector must be reduced. One way is to divest the office of the district collector into two offices, one office can take care of the regulatory functions performed by the collector while the other office can take care of the development related functions of the district collector.

Note: There has been a trend of previous year Public administration questions related to Indian Administration appearing in the GS paper II of mains exam. The question can be asked in polity governance paper as well. 

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