Governance Deficit?

By Khursheed Wani

For almost a month after durbar closes in Jammu on April 27, the governance toggles to auto-pilot mode. It takes almost a month for the ministers and bureaucrats to settle down and resume their sluggish routine. There is nothing much that governance system offers in the remaining 10 months. Ask people, huddled humiliatingly in the entry passages of the civil secretariat, and they would narrate the ordeal.

During 2010 unrest when the then home minister P Chidambaram led a parliamentary delegation to assess the rebellious ground, one of his observations was about governance deficit. Eight years down the line, the deficit has nosedived further. During that period, Mehbooba Mufti’s favourite diatribe against Omar Abdullah was that he is perpetually bringing shame to the institution of Chief Minister. One wonders as to why the Chief Minister is not assessing herself on the same parameters now.

The institutions of governance were never in such a sordid state, at least since 2002, as they appear to be nowadays. Badri Nathin Adreie Mouhar is a Kashmiri proverb about Dewan Badri Nath who used to issue an order in the morning only to cancel or modify it in the evening. This ‘wet stamp’ still exists. Some departments have turned into laughing stock due to this state of affairs. Worse, the powerful lobbies of employees, businessmen and contractors have taken over the control of the government. The orders are issued and implemented on their wishes and fancies. Those who have interest in monitoring the funny ways of present governance system must explore as to what happened in the implementation of Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) during past six months. Comedian Jaspal Bhatti must have turned in his grave if he knew the absurdity.

The Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) system was introduced with huge fanfare with the avowed objective to revolutionize payment systems, create sustainable assets and plug loopholes and stop corruption. It was aborted at a critical stage by the contractors. Grapevine is that apart from his controversial speech that hit the ‘core ideology’ of the PDP and invited humiliating sacking to finance minister Haseeb Drabu, this PAO introduction also went against him.

If the reforms Drabu introduced were unpleasant, why he was allowed to introduce them in the budget at first place. If anything approved by the legislature is truncated at a subsequent stage, it only makes a mockery of the system of governance. The theatrical announcements on the implementation of 7th pay commission recommendations also point towards lack of traction on governance.

The loopholes are visible at various levels. The state is without a regular bureaucracy head for several months as the incumbent Chief Secretary is on the second extension since November 2017.

When Mehbooba was in opposition, she would oppose the re-appointments and extensions tooth and nail. Now, she has broken all previous records of political appointments, re-appointments and service extensions. There is an army of vice-chairmen heading various public sector undertakings earning hefty salaries and perks from the state exchequer without making any substantial contribution. Their presence and interference is yet another delay and discomfort to the already sluggish decision-making.

Worse, the BJP, which is enjoying power for the first time, has its own script for the system to run. It is no longer a secret as to how the BJP ministers sidelined a set of employees and officers in Jammu region and placed their own choices at relevant seats. They did it with utter brazenness. Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, shortly after assuming charge of the forest department, in the wake of the resignation of Lal Singh over his participation in a pro-rapist rally in Kathua, went for a re-jig. He transferred several top-ranking IFS officers with a stroke of a pen. Ideally, these transfers are the prerogative of the cabinet but who cares about the norms and regulations.

Recently some factories run by Lal Singh’s relatives were raided in Kathua, which he had allowed to run clandestinely. The question arises as to why the factories were raided after Singh quit. Was it permissible to run the banned factories until Lal was part of the cabinet?

This mismanagement creates embarrassing situations. Last week, district development board meeting for Bandipora district created such situation. Initially, the meeting was scheduled to be held at Manasbal. While the participants were on way to the venue, they were informed to reach the Banquet Hall in Srinagar. Somehow they reached the new venue but after occupying chairs for an hour, the meeting was cancelled. All logistics were in place and money was spent on whatever it was supposed to be spent.

The officers, mostly heads of departments, had left their offices but were turned back. When a district development board meeting turns into the theatre of absurd, the sordid state of affairs can be fairly understood. It is said that local legislators sabotaged the meeting for their own reasons.

The growing rot in the system is worrying. The whistleblowers have given up after losing faith in the system. Some employees brought the case of an appointment scandal in technical education department to Crime Branch. Instead of investigations, the whistle-blowers were transferred.

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