Opinion All about us
The states inability to mobilise expertise and skill sets is costing India....
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There is a quiet,but deep crisis brewing in the state. Consider this random selection of stories that were also happening as the IPL crisis was distracting us: radioactive scrap yards in the heart of Delhi,arsenic in water in Chattarpur,more than a hundred people dead in storms in Bihar and West Bengal,a public spat between two key financial regulators,Sebi and IRDA,near misses at IGI airport,the role of the Planning Commission in determining poverty lines,and of course the ongoing Naxal crisis. Each of these important stories is a product of a peculiar institutional history and governance deficit. But they all have one crucial thing in common. One core issue at the heart of each story is: does the state have the right kind of human resources to be able to deal with the risks and challenges it faces?
We are surrounded by chemical hazards and much worse,but the state does not have minimal capacity to track them systematically. The storm in Bihar and West Bengal should have been an occasion to test our disaster management agency. But it was present more by its absence. Does it have enough people that really understand complex supply chains? Part of the Sebi- IRDA spat is a tale of turf wars,regulatory capture and indecision. But how much serious technical depth do we have in the financial sector? Is the pool sufficiently large to cope with the risks this sector will pose,let alone the challenges that will be raised by the complicated task of global rebalancing? We may pat ourselves on the back for supposedly coming out of the financial crisis less affected. But luck had as much to do with this escape as financial clairvoyance. Air Traffic Control is perpetually short of the required number of people. And the Planning Commission,despite some able individuals and consultants,is not equipped in terms of human resources to do the one thing it is supposed to do: act as a power-house think tank. In fact,not only has its mandate become fuzzy,its entire staffing structure seems deeply misaligned with the skill set it requires. And the Naxal operations consistently expose the fragility of the states human resource capabilities.
The list can go on. How are monopolies of power created within the state because only the Planning Commission claims to have the intellectual wherewithal for complex public-private partnership contracts? If the state allowed this capacity to be more widely distributed it would have a far more healthy internal discussion. How many top class international lawyers can the state mobilise to help it on key international disputes,from the Indus Waters Treaty to climate change? How can panchayats do complex forms of contracting without technical support?
The story of state failure is not simply one of human resources. It involves a lot of things from organisational culture,to political economy and political will. But recruiting patterns in the state are misaligned with its challenges and functions. Sometimes these misalignments are small and hilarious,but also consequential. The number of secretaries in the Government of India who complain that they cannot delegate the simple act of writing a proper letter,because there is no one on their staff who can write a letter they will not have to correct,is alarmingly high. This example is quotidian,and almost comical. But such quotidian trivia takes a toll on the state.
In short,the state lacks a well thought through human resources strategy. This strategy will require the state getting clarity over what its functions are. What are the risks and vulnerabilities it needs to guard us against? Second,it will require some serious projections of human resource needs. There is simply no such analytical assessment within government. The ministry of personnel,itself an example of role misalignment,cannot even give you a proper mapping of what government has,let alone what it might need. Third,it will require a whole new set of recruitment strategies. The biggest failure of government is that it thinks there is a profession called public service as opposed to a whole series of specialised competencies. There are some such specialised services,but by and large,recruitment has no bearing on technical competencies that will be required. Fourth,it will of course require a massive change in organisational culture of all kinds: from dismantling existing hierarchies to new forms of delegation.
Governments often have this illusion that employees are infinitely plastic and if need be,can be retrained. You need to get the structure of recruitment right. But it is underestimating three forces. First,the pace of technological change is extraordinary,and unless the state has the resources to internalise this change it will remain far behind. And frankly,with technology you need a bunch of young eager beavers,not staid civil servants. The Indian state is going to be making huge investments in new technologies. It is not clear that there is going to be a corresponding human resources strategy to make technology effective. The capacity of government staff to use technology for enhanced efficiency,let alone mobilising complex forms of knowledge,is seriously in doubt. Second,we are living in a time where the character of risks is deeply complex. Most of those are hidden from us,even when we are suffering from them,because the state cannot even identify them. Third,the state must understand that quality matters,and it must find ways to capture them.
Not all of the states human resource needs necessarily require state recruitment; it requires the ability to mobilise. Some solutions are easy. There is absolutely no doubt that the chemical risks we face are now extraordinary. If the state cannot map them,it should not be too difficult to get thousands of engineering and science graduates to spend a few days a year with each pantheist just mapping their environment and assessing risks. It might improve their education as well. Others will require more systemic change. There are some extraordinary people within government. Organisations are path dependent. If government does not use this moment of expansion for getting its recruitment right,we will be stuck with the consequences. One of the central functions of the state is to protect citizens against risk and vulnerability of all kinds. But it needs to make sure that its own lack of human resources is not a source of risk. No wonder we are glued to IPL. Otherwise everything reminds us of the fact that there but for the grace of God go we.
The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi
express@expressindia.com
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