“All the matters related to electoral reforms or legislative issues are being addressed in a comprehensive manner in various other fora. Hence, it is decided that Govt. need not take any decision in this regard.”

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) was set up with a lot of fanfare in 2005. We will now finally get administrative reforms going, ensure accountability and transparency in pubic expenditure and improve governance. ARC has submitted 15 reports so far. The first is on right to information, the second on human capital (NREGA), third on crisis management, fourth on ethics in governance and the fifth on local governance.

Within the government system, success rate in implementing recommendations of assorted commissions, committees and task forces is low. Just consider the 10-volume report of the Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC).

To get back to ARC, we now have government decisions on those five reports and the quote I have reproduced is from fourth report on ethics in governance. It’s the government response to ARC recommendations on the reform of political funding. In this age of IT and copy-paste, it is also a response to recommendations on tightening of the anti-defection law, disqualification, coalition and ethics, appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner, grounds for disqualification of MPs/MLAs, enforcement of ethics in legislatures, office of profit and so on.

On these issues, one is then forced to deduce that ARC didn’t understand its mandate and TOR and wasn’t aware of all these other fora. The point is not that all recommendations of a commission need be accepted. Nor is this the place to go down each ARC recommendation item by item and discuss government reactions. However, the general impression one forms is of the central government’s contentment with status quo and passing the buck to state governments.

... contd.