Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Apr 21: Asserting that “political intervention” is essential in a democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today made it clear to bureaucrats not to view this as a hindrance for good governance.
Drawing a distinction between political interference and intervention, he said while the former will “destroy” the system, the latter is “necessary” and “inevitable”.
Addressing civil servants, the Prime Minister said bureaucratic temperament and political interference are often talked about as obstacles in moving the democratic process forward.
“In a democracy, bureaucracy and political intervention go hand in hand. This is the speciality of democracy. If we have to run this country, we do not require political interference. But political intervention is necessary and inevitable otherwise democracy will not work.
“Political intervention is required in democracy as legislators are elected by people. Political interference destroys (the system),” Modi said.
He said there is a need to remove words like obstacle and difficulty from within the bureaucratic system.
“One department is working but it is stopped somewhere. You will ask what has happened? It will say that is the bureaucratic way of functioning. Similarly if some work is stuck somewhere we say it is political interference,” Modi said at the Civil Services Day function.
Emphasising on accountability and responsibility, Modi told the bureaucrats that every problem has a solution which has to be found out.
“Accountability, Responsi-bility and Transparency; this ART is essential for good governance,” he said.
Advocating reforms in bureaucracy, Modi said there is a need to give impetus to reforms and technology as the day is not far when the world will look at m-governance or mobile governance.
Remembering Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Prime Minister said it was natural to recall the contribution of country’s first Home Minister, who had worked for integration of India.
“Today, the need is socio-economic integration. We think of a model that gives importance to integration, that brings the people closer to each other,” he said.
Asking the civil servants to value the importance of life, Modi said otherwise it would become uninteresting just like a page of any file. “A life full of tension cannot achieve anything, especially when you have to run the nation. …You are very good at time management but do you spend quality time with your family? Please think about this,” he said.
Congratulating officers who were honoured for their distinguish service in different fields, the Prime Minister said there was a lot to learn or replicate the good works done by the awardees.
“Our work is not only to run departments. We have to be innovative, modernise within the department as well,” he said adding, “We need to give priority to perfection and capacity building”.
Speaking on the occasion,Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister in charge of Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said, the 21st April is the historic day because it was on this day when the first Home Minister of India Sardar Patel had for the first time formally addressed the first batch of IAS officers soon after Independence.
He said, the Civil Services Day has come a long way for the last six decades and even though Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is considered to be reincarnation of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) ,the fact is that there is a huge difference in the sense that, while, for example, an ICS Collector was expected to collect revenue for the British Empire, an IAS Collector is expected to generate revenue for the masses in a democratic setup. Similarly, while an ICS officer was a symbol of the Emperor’s authority, an IAS officer is a messenger of public welfare programmes between the state and the masses.
Under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dr Jitendra Singh said, during the last ten months the focus has been on ‘Maximum Governance, Minimum Government’ and a number of new innovative initiatives have been undertaken. These include self-attested certificates, easy Pension Procedures and e-Governance with digitalization, he added.
In the interest of physical and mental well-being of the Civil Servants , Dr Jitendra Singh said, from 1st April, DoPT has started Yoga Classes in 28 centres in NCR and 14 centres in other parts of the country including Mumbai, Bengaluru , Chennai and Nagpur.
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