Article - 86 Week 2 Regulating Regulators

Article - 86  Week 2

Regulating Regulators

It's a bad idea to start with. If there is a need to regulate the very people who are supposed to regulate and administer - the system has already failed. We have this old habit of putting in more checks and trying to balance the system. In the bargain, the system gets slower and slower as you keep screwing it tight with more and more of checks. Then at a certain stage, the system just comes to a grinding halt. It does not move, even when you keep on kicking it with all your force.

You try getting any thing moved in a government Department and you realize that, even when the people who happen to be friendly(interpret how you nurture this relationship) to you are genuinely trying to move your file in the right direction. But they fail or get it blocked many number of times. Remember that you are already working in a failed system. So, there is no point grumbling about who to blame. Going by the past, we have a whole new set & subsets of bodies to keep an eye on the errant ones, like SIIB, DRI, Appeal Boards and many such departments who have started feeding on each other and slowing the system down to a very large degree while increasing the dirty money circulation, many folds. We do have a judicial system to correct the excesses. Unfortunately that too is in a similar mess. They would usually avoid many such issues on the pretext of administrative prerogatives, while passing judgements on flimsy cases in order to benefit a particular party. 

Rather than regulating these regulators and administrators, we must let them lose. And focus on the crime rather than the criminal. The processes should be simplified. The users and associations should act as guides in this simplification war. The Laws and regulations should be articulated in texts easily understood by the public. The goal of each department should be defined and a there should be a matrix to measure performance of the people inside. Accountability should be brought in. Award and punishment systems should be firmly in place. The list goes on. This is no rocket science. The 'how' part is known to all. The problem is, no one wants to do it.

The reason, no one wants to do it, is because over extremely long period of time, the public is misled into believing that more stringent and punitive mechanisms directed at the administrators and the regulators would solve the problem. You can not blame the public or collective wisdom so to say. They have been subjected to these stringent and punitive severities from the government for a very long time. Therefore, they have begun to think of such a reversed mechanism to deliver the goods. Such ideas have brought forth movements like Anna's. Even though Anna's movement can be interpreted and supported as a reaction of the public to the excesses of near-failed administration and poor delivery, this will in no way make the system better. There will be another crazy elephant in the room. The smaller miscreants will no doubt be cowed down by this wild elephant if at all it sees the light of the day, but the system will continue to chug along more slowly than before. Public needs to understand the importance of complete changes & simplifications in the administrative processes. 

The government knows how to fix this. The public (collectively) is unaware of it, though there are individuals who know this. The public hears of smoky stuff like political will and so on. Political will is not an unconnected island of benevolence. This will is created through the public perception. I feel the day is not really far, when public will be fully conversant with the ills of the system rather than be fixated with the people within the system. The big change is not very far.

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Brgds

Capt Rath