‘Improving competence in bureaucracy must’

It was intended to be a free flowing discussion and it turned out to one.

In the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Singapore deputy PM Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former finance secretary Vijay Kelkar on Friday told a gathering of over 1,000 bureaucrats and cabinet ministers that there was a problem of competence in bureaucracy.

This was, however, rebutted by NHAI chairman Raghav Chandra who said that if you need better quality, you have to pay more.

UP chief secretary Deepak Singhal made an important interjection that it was not just senior bureaucracy but those at the grassroots also need to be given quality training. It was necessary to give cutting-edge training to block development officers and tehsildars, he added.

Singhal said there was a need to modernise agriculture and give more purchasing power to farmers.

The discussion on governance, economy and development followed Shanmugaratnam’s talk on India in the Global Economy, part of the annual lecture series organised by the government think-tank Niti Aayog.

Another senior civil servant said that if the government wanted bureaucrats to perform, they should be given a free hand. “Keep out the political interference,” said one of them.

Former RBI governor Bimal Jalan, who was one of the panelists, said there was a need to prioritise four human development indices — nutrition, education, health and shelter — to keep India’s growth story going.

There was a word of advise for the PM also that it was okay to promote manufacturing and Make in India but the farmers should not be left behind. It came not from a policy maker sitting in Delhi but one who as a state’s chief secretary is working in the field.