One can hardly state the prioritisation of public expenditure better. A.D. Gorwala wrote this. The quote is from Report on Public Administration and the year was 1951.

One can go round in circles trying to define administrative reforms or governance. Beyond a point, taxonomy is counter-productive. The department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG) has a definition of public administration and administrative reforms and as per this definition, there have been 73 reports by commissions/ committees, all on improving public administration. The earliest is 1812 and the latest is 2004. Thus, strictly speaking, the number is more than 73. Post-2004 reports haven’t been included. Of particular interest are recent reports like National Development Council on Austerity (1992), Expenditure Reforms Commission (2001), Surendra Nath Committee (2003) and Committee on Civil Service Reforms (2004). The 1992 NDC report was confidential initially, but is now in the public domain. It was also authored when the present dispensation formed the government. It said: “A broad strategy in this regard should include (a) closer scrutiny and application of cost-effectiveness analysis to expenditure proposals, (b) administrative reforms to eliminate unnecessary work, (c) systematic attention to maintenance and fuller utilisation of assets created, (d) avoidance of open-endedness in subsidies by rigid targeting of beneficiary groups and plugging of leakages, and (e) application of zero-based budgeting to expenditure proposals for existing schemes.”

If one wishes to do something, one goes ahead and does it. If one wishes to convey the impression of movement, without any action, one sets up a committee/ commission, so that minutes are kept and hours wasted. The short point is there is no dearth of recommendations telling us what should be done to introduce administrative reforms and deliver better governance. “The institutions of governance fashioned by our founding fathers of our Republic have served us well over the last five decades. However, it is fair to state that many of the institutions have been of late showing signs of stress and today, the efficiency and effectiveness of many of these institutions are being questioned. There is growing dissatisfaction regarding the functioning of the executive and the legislature and their ability to deliver effective governance to meet the needs and challenges of our times.” That is from a speech delivered by Dr Manmohan Singh at a

... contd.