Seven Reasons Why Indian Governments Under-Perform

Over the past few decades, all three levels of the Indian Government — National, State and City / Village — have generally under-performed relative to the potential of India and her people. For simplicity, I define under-performance on two parameters — ineffectiveness (can’t get the right thing done) and inefficiency (using more resources — money, time, human power, materials, etc — than necessary to get something done).

While most people focus on corruption and apathy, my experience working with Government at all three levels, suggests 6 other causes, each of which can be addressed in different ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our Governments. These are general observations and there certainly are some exceptions. Additionally, from my limited exposure to governments in other countries, some of these factors are quite international.

1. Lack of relevant competency: Officers often find themselves in roles for which they have no domain expertise or preparation / training. The belief that generalists can manage anything may have worked in past days when the world was simpler. But given today’s complexities and speed, it means officers take too long to understand what should be done; rely excessively on juniors, who may have their own agendas, for advise; or have egos that don’t let them ask for help and therefore they make mistakes or sometimes worse, take no actions at all.

At one time in about 2018–19 when Mumbai’s BEST public bus system was in crisis, the top boss was an extremely well-educated and globally exposed IAS (Indian Administrative Service, the elite civil service) officer with experience in economic and international affairs! It is not difficult to see why he had a hard time figuring out how to move people from point A to B efficiently and cost-effectively. The million+ daily commuters suffered greatly, the service bled money and Mumbai’s public transit remained backward and in shambles. At the same time, the heads of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) or Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) were run by people with relevant education and decades of experience in public transportation.

Solution: Provide sector-specific training to officers and ensure they have the requisite domain knowledge before postings to a role. Better still, create specialist cadres in the administrative services for subjects like urban management, water and sewerage, agriculture, rural development, technology etc.

2. Lack of Continuity: In 2013, I sat in the conference room at the Ministry of Rural Development of the Government of India, which has an annual budget of $15–20 billion. The wooden placard on the wall showed that since 1980, in 33 years, there had been 23 Ministers for Rural Development. Three ministers had a combined tenure of 13 years, meaning 20 Ministers totaled the other 20 years. Even the best run business will crumble if average CEO tenure is 1 year.

But this is normal in our government where people are transferred, sometimes overnight, usually every 15–24 months, and often into completely unrelated new roles. This is disruptive for the organization as no one know how long they or their boss/juniors will be around and productivity suffers; there is no proper handover to the successor; and the person takes much longer finding their feet in the new role. Short tenures prevent people from building expertise and given somewhat ad hoc career growth, the focus turns to keeping your bosses happy rather than achieving excellence in performance. No upside to this way of functioning.

This also reduces accountability as everyone inherits projects and policies they didn’t start and therefore seek new activities to make their mark, instead of properly completing what has been started.

Solution: Longer tenures (minimum 4 or 5 years for most roles) with greater accountability to complete certain tasks and projects, and orderly handover when being transferred.

Semi-autonomous bodies, Public Utilities and such solutions should be used where possible to bring together the required expertise, and provide continuity, authority and accountability in the design and delivery of public services.

The next 2 issues follow from the above fatal flaws, under which no organization of any kind can be effective and efficient.

3. Lack of Planning: Anyone who has worked with Government bodies knows they are more reactive, often demanding solutions and reports overnight. There is often prolonged inaction, and then urgency to do things without adequate consultation or holistic planning. Even large programs suffer from this syndrome. Further, budgets for design and planning are often so small and time so short, that low-budget consultants copy-and-paste solutions. Billions are spent on implementing these plans!

The Swachh Bharat Mission quickly defined a “clean India” in ridiculously narrow terms of building toilets. Then it ignored the fact, which many experts immediately highlighted, that without water and proper faecal waste management, toilets will either become unhygienic and unused, or all that faecal waste remaining in the domestic space will pollute the soil and water and be a health hazard. Yet a large, multi-billion dollar program went ahead without holistic planning and the results are becoming clear. Once again, the new Jal Jeevan Mission (Water to every Home) is focusing on household water supply without enough attention to how the resulting wastewater will be safely drained, treated and re-used or discharged back into the environment.

Lack of proper planning, when combined with the first two factors nearly guarantees sub-optimal performance, unless good luck intervenes.

Solution: Provide adequate time and budgets for properly planning projects. Invest your best expertise upfront.

4. Lack of long-term financial planning: Funds are approved each year and there is some sense, but no guarantee, of how much money will be available to a program in future years. Urban infrastructure and complex development projects, in particular, need to be built up and expanded over time but without a clear financial roadmap, such adaptive plans cannot be made. Therefore, the focus is on spending present allocated funds — even if it isn’t the best use of funds — because unspent funds lapse and cannot be used next year.

This also means that private service providers don’t have confidence of being paid on time in the future, resulting in high bids and low levels of services.

Say you are building a sewerage system. It may be best to build for requirements of the near future and then expand and improve the system a few years later, taking advantage of the latest technologies and data available at that time. Instead, the Detailed Project Report will be prepared for a 25 year horizon, making assumptions that will be incorrect — and a lot more money will be spent today to build an oversized system to meet the needs of 2045. Often, the infrastructure will not live to see 2045. Instead it would be better to build for the needs of 2030, incorporating flexibility and options to expand it and insert new technologies and equipment as the system reached full capacity — in 2030 or earlier / later. However, funds are available today and there is no idea whether additional funds will ever be available, so the decision is to spend as much as possible today.

Solution: There need to be actionable long-term development plans for urban and rural areas, based on which projects are planned and financed for their entire lifecycle.

5. Politics: Friction between Central, State and Local Governments create problems if they are not from the same political party. Authority and funds are not devolved to local level of decision making as per the Indian Constitutions’ 74th Amendment (of 1992) partly because State Governments want to retain control over municipalities and village panchayats. Long-term planning that supersedes election cycles, and semi-autonomous bodies that are somewhat insulated from political interference, can reduce the negative effects of such politics.

6. Corruption and Vested Private Interests: These are perhaps the most difficult to address as they have become increasingly ingrained into how government functions and business is done in India.

The first four issues can be addressed relatively easily to improve outcomes. Increasing effectiveness and efficiency, however, may make corruption more difficult, and therefore improving the functioning of Government may be against the best interest of politicians and the bureaucracy — and therefore may remain a challenge.

And, lastly…

7. Voters: In a democracy, the ultimate responsibility must rest with voters. If they do not make the right demands and hold politicians responsible for delivering them, then democracy will not work reliably. Indian voters are poorly informed and divided, and a few rupees or a bottle of local liquor can buy their vote. Nonetheless, civic education and voter information is critical to strengthen Indian democracy.