Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam’s recent circular to District Collectors, laying down a 10-point agenda, has sparked a debate on the need for administrative restructuring in the State.
In a circular dated July 10, Mr. Shanmugam urged the Collectors to carry out more field visits; facilitate rural transformation through economic development; enable construction of pucca houses for hut dwellers; execute a special drive to complete pending drinking water works; accord “special attention” to agriculture and allied activities; and encourage greater public participation for water conservation and better management of waterbodies.
Welcoming the Chief Secretary’s initiative, M.G. Devasahayam, former civil servant and now an activist living in Nagercoil, said the circular had sent out the message that Mr. Shanmugam was asserting his position as the head of the civil services, a feature that was now perceptible.
Yet, the bureaucracy in the State required “administrative restructuring”.
Like many other States, Tamil Nadu should have a system of Divisional Commissioners for monitoring the work of Collectors.
“Many of them are young and inexperienced. They are badly in need of mentoring, which they are not getting under the present arrangement,” Mr. Devasahayam said. When controversies erupted over the Sterlite plant and the proposed Chennai-Salem Expressway, the Collectors of Thoothukudi and Salem districts would have responded in a better manner than the way they did, had there been a “proper system of oversight” in place, he added.
However, K. Satyagopal, Additional Chief Secretary/Commissioner of Revenue Administration (CRA), emphasised that the State had a “sound and well-defined” system of oversight. The functioning of Collectors was being reviewed at different levels, both by the political executive and senior civil servants. In situations like water crises, the Chief Minister himself conducted the review of the Collectors.
Apart from the Chief Secretary, the Revenue Secretary and the CRA, monitoring officers, who were all senior IAS officers, were sent to all the districts regularly. Besides, not many southern States followed the system of Divisional Commissioners, he pointed out.
Another senior officer, who is also an Additional Chief Secretary, said that increasingly, secretaries of different departments in the State were reviewing with the Collectors the status of projects and schemes that fell under their jurisdiction through video-conferencing, which was a positive feature of the State’s bureaucracy.
