The Fourth Administrative Reforms Commission headed by former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has decided to prepare an approach paper to flag the key questions that should be addressed when reforming the State’s administrative set-up.
The commission, which held a workshop on the way forward here on Saturday, felt that its recommendations should reflect the changes that have come about in the State’s physical and social environment and the new administrative challenges that the State faced. The positives and negatives in the structure of the bureaucracy, absence of coordination among departments, shortcomings in methodology of service delivery, the need for modern management techniques, emerging challenges in financial management and the need for transparency in governance figured in the discussion, which was attended by experts from diverse fields. The commission has decided to seek inputs on each area from society at large and experts to make its recommendations comprehensive.
Inaugurating the session, Mr. Achuthanandan said that while the State had several pluses in governance, there were unresolved issues such as administrative inefficiencies resulting from bureaucratic bottlenecks, unscientific resource utilisation, trade in education, and unscientific land and water management. Past commissions had looked at these issues and several of their recommendations had been implemented. However, many recommendations had been overlooked. While all of them may not be relevant today, there were many that could still be of use, he said.
Commission members and former Chief Secretaries C.P. Nair and Neela Gangadharan, Institute of Management in Government (IMG) director general Satyajeet Rajan and commission secretary and General Administration Department Secretary Sheela Thomas addressed the meeting.
