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On IT and Administrative Reforms

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

Administration involves dealing with large number of people in a

mass. It also requires keeping meticulous records to ensure that there is

transparency in the process of decision-making and more important information is

retrieved to check precedents so that no injustice is done in handling two cases

of the same type. It is said that justice must not only be done but must seen

to be done
. In the process of making the process of justice in

administration visible, keeping of records and timely information retrieval

become very important.

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IT, which is a happy marriage of computers and communications,

is designed to achieve these very purposes. The general complaints against

public administration are delay, inefficiency and corruption. Delays and

inefficiency provide a rich environment for promoting corruption. Any effort at

administrative reforms involves removing these commonly perceived defects of

administration, and bring greater speed and transparency in the system. So that

the satisfaction of the citizens can be enhanced and there could be greater

productivity, efficiency and transparency in administration.

N

Vittal
,


Secretary, DoE, and Former Chief

Vigilance Commissioner, Govt of India

Then why is it that IT has not been extensively used in

administrative reforms? The main reason for that is the diametrically opposite

cultures of IT and public administration. IT thrives on speed, IT revels in

transparency and IT grows on accessibility. The culture of public

administration, especially in our country, unfortunately, has grown in a culture

of secrecy, lack of easy accessibility and transparency. It is this dissonance

in culture that delayed the introduction of IT in administration. Fortunately,

the pervasive impact of IT in the global economy is having its osmotic effect on

public administration. In the last 50 years we have seen the increasing impact

of IT in public administration and in this process IT contributing to

administrative reforms. Perhaps the best example of IT contributing not only to

reforms but also greater efficiency, productivity, transparency and comfort to

citizens is the computerization of the railway passenger reservation system. The

extensive use of IT, including electronic voting machines under the vigilant eye

of the Election Commission, has brought a high degree of transparency and

reduction in malpractices in the festivals of democracy in the form of elections

which we celebrate every five years, if not more frequently.

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The National Stock Exchange fortunately began on the right foot

by opting for the use of satellite communication and IT. It has emerged today,

in a very short time, as one of the cleanest and biggest stock exchanges in the

world-next only to the New York Stock Exchange and NASSDAQ.

IT

and administrative reforms, in a way, appear to be a case of what the old

advertisement for a cigarette company used to call-'made for each

other'

While these are the outstanding examples, many state governments

have also initiated action to move towards the era of e-Governance, from the

Nineties, by extensively using information technology in many departments, which

have high human interface with citizens.

Nevertheless, all these efforts have highlighted a simple fact.

There is no point in merely using computers to replicate the process which are

being done manually. While this may result in speed, mere blind computerization

without looking into processes and eliminating physically the scope for

corruption leads only to sub-optimal results. The greater the extent to which

the administrative processes are thought and reengineered by reducing the

element of human discretion and the need for face-to-face interaction with the

citizen, greater is the scope for checking corruption.

The challenges of a multi speed India can be overcome by using

IT as a leveler. That is our hope!

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