Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 30
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said Sardar Patel’s ideal of the impartial civil services had changed over the years and there was a need for carefully examining issues related to the functioning of bureaucrats without fear or favour.
Singh was speaking at the launch of a book featuring 20 articles by acclaimed late bureaucrat Mahesh Neelkanth Buch who joined the IAS in 1957 and came to be known as the architect of New Bhopal. Buch’s father was a distinguished member of the Punjab cadre of ICS.
The launch of “An India re-imagined: Governance and Administration in the World’s Largest Democracy”, written by Buch and edited by N Ravichandran of Penguin Random House, was organised here by the India International Centre (IIC), Jan Pahal Trust and National Centre for Human Settlement and Environment.
IIC President and former Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra chaired the event sharing recollections of Buch, his senior in the IAS.
Referring to the book, Manmohan Singh said: “Buch reminds us that the establishment of All India Services was due to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s clear understanding that India had fissiparous tendencies which needed to be controlled and countered by building into the Constitution centripetal features that would hold the country together.”
The former PM quoted Buch on how Sardar Patel believed that if the executive governance of states and the Union was carried out by IAS officers, immunised from arbitrary action by the political class, India have a nonpartisan administration with officers working without fear or favour.
“Buch points out that up to 1967, the system worked extremely well and this was possible because mostly the governments at both the Centre and states were formed by the same party. Since then the situation has changed a great deal and Sardar Patel’s ideal of an impartial civil service, immunised from undue political influence and therefore, in a position to give advice without fear and favour, and to administer without bias was in danger,” Singh noted adding that over the years the “position has worsened”.
The former PM said “issues relating to the functioning of the IAS officers without fear or favour need to be carefully examined”. Further Manmohan Singh today used Buch’s observations to make a case for state funding of elections and said: “In his 10 points to curb corruption, Buch argues for a system of state funding of a prescribed minimum amount of expenditure by candidates for state legislature and parliamentary election. His remaining nine points have also considerable merit for curbing corruption.”
Singh also said he agreed with Buch about universal health coverage being state-led rather than a privately-led exercise. The event was also attended by MN Buch’s wife Nirmala Buch and Suhas Borker, Managing Trustee of Jan Pahal Trust.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2MsYBlB
via Today’s News Headlines
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