BIKASH CHOUDHURY
Demand for new smaller States
have grown thick and fast in different parts of our country in the recent past;
the Telengana State in Andhra Pradesh is the prominent one. The demand
for smaller States were not on the basis for better Governance but political.
If it were on Governance then we would have seen demand for smaller City States
like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore & Hyderabad as these cities have
grown much beyond the capacity of a civic metropolitan council; however, non so
far agitated for a just cause; again out of political consideration. What is
the way forward?
We have observed that during
pre colonization our country was ruled by Monarchs of very small territory; now
compared to a District. These Kings used to look after the Socio-Economic
progress of their people apart from Defense, Judiciary and Civil
Administration. Apparently, our country’s economic progress then could be
attributed to the able “Leadership” provided by these kings over a smaller land
mass that exercised authority as well as remain closer to their people. Since,
our Independence that role has been taken over by civil servants/
District Magistrates. That system was working fine for some time; but, now with
growth of population by four times since independence and with growing
political & social awareness level in even remote areas of the country, the
complexity of civil administration has grown manifold and the demand for
attention on Socio-Economic growth has become much more tougher and beyond the
capacity of a District Magistrate who mostly have 8-10 yrs of experience in
Indian Administrative Service and in the age group of 25-35 yrs. As many
memoirs of retired civil servants suggest, these young DM’s remain hostage to
their ‘Bada Babu’/section officer due to lack of experience, exposure, maturity
and ground realities of their assigned district. This may or may not be true;
but, certainly there is a need to consider the necessity of “Rejuvenating the
District Administration” after 60 plus years of our freedom.
We now have a system of
Regional Development Commissioner (RDC ) to over see the socio-economic development & administration of a
set of districts which is largely non-functional due to over bureaucracy,
confusing & complicated line of command and they remain at a distance from
their epicenters and therefore can’t provide necessary ‘Leadership’ as the
command and control mechanism fail to work at the optimum level most of the
time due to ‘bureaucratic fire walls’.
It is now about time to
choose a very senior administrator for each district designated as ‘District
Development Commissioner’ to head the ‘District Secretariat’/ Zilla Sachivalya.
All Departments of Govt. in the District should operate under him in one roof
including District Magistrate, Superintendent of Police and Project Director of
DRDA. A suitable Matrix organization could be created between Departmental Head
in the State Secretariat and District Departmental Heads through the office of
District Development Commissioner while abolishing the office of Regional
Development Commissioner. This should bring a unified command in the Socio,
Economic Development and civil administration with a “matured, experienced and
competent bureaucratic leadership” in a District that could bring faster
economic growth with equity through much better execution of programs of Govt.
minimize bureaucratic hurdles and need for co-ordination between different
organs of Govt. in the District Head Quarter at Zilla Sachivalaya.
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E-mail:streben.market@gmail.com
(apartment) Patia Bhubaneswar Odisha INDIrA-751024
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