(PYQ 2020 Mock Answer: Public administration) Indian Civil services

 B) There is a constant and continuous collision between bureaucratic values and democratic values which adversely affects development. Do you agree? Elaborate 

Answer: 

It is seen that democratic values like transparency, accountability, participative governance etc come in conflict with the bureaucratic values of the bureaucrats like Hierarchy, rules and regulations, efficiency, value neutrality etc. This conflict manifests in the following ways: 

1. Accountability - The bureaucrats are not directly accountable to the people for their actions, there is only an indirect accountability mechanism via the elected representatives 
2. Transparency is a democratic value but since we have inherited the colonial laws and procedures, the opaqueness in the system violates this principle 
3. Bureaucracy tends to treat citizens as subjects to be governed rather than as citizens to be empowered 
4. The bureaucracy keeps the citizens out of the process of governance and tends to treat citizens as outside beneficiaries in the process of development 
5. Goal displacement - the bureaucrats are more interested in implementing rules and regulations than on maximising the welfare of the people.
6. Failure of citizen centric reforms like RTI, Citizens charter and Social audit
7. The colonial attitude of the bureaucrats
8. Bureaucratic apathy 

The fact even after 75 years of independence development administration has been a failure is indicative of the impact this collision of values has on the development and growth of the country. 

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(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) Chester Bernard

 "Executive positions imply a complex morality and require a high capacity of responsibility" — (Chester Barnard). Comment. (15 Marks)

Answer:

Chester Bernard says there are two kinds of people in an organisation: one’s who are unwilling to take responsibility while the others are those who are willing take responsibility for their own actions as well as for the action of the subordinates. If a person is holding an executive position then clearly he/she belong to the latter category, hence indicating a high capacity of responsibility. 

Chester Bernard gave theory of functional leadership wherein a leader has to perform 3 functions :-
1. Establishing and maintaining the system of communication in the org.
2. Securing essential efforts and services from subordinates by motivating them to exert themselves for the org.’s purpose.
3. Formulating and defining purposes and objectives.

As a leader, the executive is expected to take the responsibility to perform the above three functions. This further substantiate the fact that executive positions require a high capacity of responsibility.

Chester Bernard also defines leadership as moral responsibility. Which means a person holding leadership position must avoid the tendency to misuse the resources of the organisation for private purposes. Hence,  we can conclude that Executive positions imply a complex morality.

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(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) NPM/Neo-Taylorism

 New Public Management has been branded by certain scholars as `Neo-Taylorism'. Is it a justified comparison? What factors have led to the decline of NPM so soon after its birth? (20 Marks)

New Public Management as a concept emerged to deal with the issues of economy and efficiency in Public Sector Enterprises. The government had to give huge amount of budgetary support to these PSEs and the losses incurred by PSUs resulted in high amounts of fiscal deficit for the government. Hence to promote economy and efficiency in the PSEs, the government decided to adopt the principles followed in private organisations for the PSEs as well. Since Private organisations were mostly following Scientific Management Theory or Taylorism, the government ended up adopting the same for PSEs. The following are the features of NPM, that justify why it can be called Neo-taylorism:

1. Emphasises on implementing scientific management principles to improve performance of PSEs 

2. Emphasises on cost-cutting – economy 

3. Providing responsive services to citizens 

4. Use of information Technology 

5. Emphasises on implementing scientific management principles to improve performance of PSEs 

6. NPM treat citizens as customers and the government considers itself a service provider so that the moral responsibility of bureaucracy is transformed into legal accountability 

7. Developing competition and ensuring performance control 

   

The reason for the decline of NPM so soon after its birth are as follows: 

1. NPM is based on market philosophy wherein market takes into consideration the needs of only those people who can pay for services whereas the needs of those who can't pay are ignored 

2. Government is not there to maximise profits, objective of government is to maximise the welfare of people. It's the responsibility of the government to provide basic needs to people irrespective of the costs involved in it. Even if loss is incurred in the process, Government has to provide those services. 

3. Critics said that NPM might be applicable for developing countries where in citizens can be treated as customers as they can pay for the services. Government can consider itself as service provider like other private sector providers. But applicability of NPM is restricted in developing countries because in developing countries people can't pay for services 

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(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) Classical and Human Relation theories

 Q. "What is distinctive about the Classical and Human Relations schools of administration is their complementarily to each other." Analyse. (10 Marks)

Answer: 

Post industrial revolution, organisations were facing problems of economy and efficiency. An organisation is made up structures and people 

Organisation = Structure + People

The classical theories like Scientific management theory, Administrative management theory etc. emphasised on the structural aspects and ignored the human element in the organisation, that is the reason even though these theories were successful, their success was limited. As Hawthorne experiments by Elton Mayo clearly established the importance of the human element in the organisation, Classical theories alone were not enough for enhancing the efficiency of the organisation. 

The human relations theory laid an emphasis on the social and psychological factors in enhancing the efficiency of the organisation but downplayed the importance of structures.  

So from the above it is obvious that Classical theory or human relations theory alone don’t form the complete picture, for enhancing the economy and efficiency of an organisation, both the theories are required together, hence their complementarity can be established. 

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(PYQ Mock Answer Polity Governance/Public Administration) Role of Media

Q. When the media is controlled by vested interests, how can it control the vested interests in the government ? How can the media become more responsible & impartial ? (2017)

Answer:

In a democracy the media plays a very important role in bridging the gap between the Citizens and the State. The recent issues of Politicisation of media, Paid news, Yellow journalism, Sensationalisation and scandal obsessed media has raised serious questions on the credibility of the media. A media controlled by vested interests has transformed the media from a watchdog into a lapdog of the powerful sections of the society. To make the media responsible and impartial, following measure can be undertaken:

1. Self regulation: A government regulator will be a hindrance for the independence of media and raises threat of censorship, hence a powerful and responsible self regulatory body of media is the need of the hour.
2. The press council of India, can be strengthened with more powers to punish the violators.
3. There must be restriction on the aggregate holdings and cross holdings of politicians and businessmen in Media houses.
4. A code of conduct and code of ethics can be prescribed for the members of the media and strict action can be taken by the self regulator in case of violations.
5. Crowdfunding for Media houses to reduce undue influence of any particular section of the society and to enforce the media loyalty to the public at large.

The above measures can go a long way in establishing a vibrant media that can promote accountability and transparency in the administration and further the empowerment of Citizens. 

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(PYQ Mock Answer Polity Governance/Public Administration) 73rd Ammendment

Q. The 73rd amendment may accentuate fiscal indiscipline by establishing between states & local government a system of transfers, similar to the one in place between central & state govt. (World Bank) Comment. (2013)

Answer:

Given the asymmetry in powers in collection of taxes between the centre and the states, the constitution establishes the Finance Commission (A.280) to ensure devolution of financial resources to the states. This transfer of revenues from the centre to the state has resulted in fiscal profligacy among the state governments, the following points substantiate the same:

1. Aid curse: This “free” transfer of resources from the centre to the states, made the states perennially dependant on the centre for aid and financial resources, this attitude has resulted in the states turning a blind eye to strengthening their own sources of revenue and increasing their tax efforts. 
2. Election freebies and unnecessary subsidies: This revenue stream from the centre to the states has enabled the states to be more extravagant in their expenditure, this tendency can be seen in the distribution election freebies (like TVs, Laptops), unnecessary subsidies and farm loan waivers. 
3. Decreased tax efforts: The states are happy with the steady flow of revenue from the centre to the state through the FC recommendations, hence they are not improving their tax efforts to increase revenue collection. The citizens are not burned by taxation hence they tend to be happy with the government in power. Yet, another populistic measure. 

The 73rd amendment has replicated this system of devolution to the states and local self governments as well by setting up the State Finance Commission (SFC). The SFC is given the responsibility of giving recommendations regarding transfer of resources from the state to the local self governments. This stream of revenue is being misused the same way the states have misused the money devolved from the centre. In simple words, the problem of Aid curse, Election freebies and decreased tax efforts is being witnessed in utilisation of funds among the local self governments as well.

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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