Rearchitecting Indian Government : Gov 2.0

An appropriate architecture of government can make a very big impact on the people’s lives and progress. It is important to realise that government architecture ought to be dynamic and not frozen in time. Each country must discover what is appropriate for its people; there is no perfect system that can be cited.

The constitutions of most countries, in 120 out of 192 countries which are supposedly democracies, envisage three pillars of governments that are - legislature, executive & judiciary. The constitution defines the underlying principles & policies to be followed by the government and checks and balances between the arms of the government, a construct that is based on the principle of separation of powers. Democracy is supposed to be the last form of government. There are dozens of forms of government and many countries have experienced multiple forms of governments over the period of their existence. Depending upon the size of the country, there exist multiple levels, for e.g. national, state, district and local.  

The characteristics of the government at each level differ. This structure is totally archaic in all countries. The situation in India is described below; however, the case for delayering and downsizing governments is applicable universally. Delayering and "de-federating" are needed in government organizations and there are any number of commissions and task forces working on creating recommendatory reports. However, there is virtually nil discussion on delayering or eliminating the federal structure so as to cut the number of political positions. 

Does federal structure make the system more democratic - do people get more voice or the politicians do? More political positions does not mean more democracy. Likewise if you have to elect fewer people it does not mean you live in a system which is less democratic. 

Local bodies (elected) - panchayats constituted of five 'panchs' who are elected from a single village or a set of smaller villages; municipalities constituted of corporators who are elected from wards of the city or township

District officers (executive & judicial)

State government, bodies; legislature (elected), departments (executive) & courts (judicial)

National government, bodies; legislature (elected & nominated), departments (executive) & courts (judicial)

The term of elected representatives is of 5 years (in other countries term varies, US congressman has the shortest term of 2 years). Elected representatives are "politicians". In India, their service terms have no performance appraisal or incentives, political parties may themselves apply their respective appraisal systems. What programs they are pursuing or supporting is not known to public. There is seldom any referendum in any country on policy issues, exception being Switzerland.

The idea of the above structure is few hundred years old. It originated in Europe, though the practice of democracy originated in ancient Greece, Mesopotamia and ancient India couple of thousand years ago. All big governments are still having structures that were formed when neither planes nor telecommunications existed - of course electronic media, IT and Internet were not even conceived. UK or England had the smartest systems experts and architects for designing government structures. Brits tweaked their systems to suit their local requirements as a colonial power, in different countries round the globe. They implemented their systems so well that for generations, after the colonies gained independence, people have continued to live by those very systems without question. The slavery to habit (tradition) is a force that requires more than education to counter or effect changes. In context of innovations in laws, it requires legislators who are educated, systems experts, communicators and hard-working, all at the same time. Such combination of virtues to find amongst legislators is rare.  Nevertheless it is worth discussing a new version of government and building a popular consensus so future legislators can follow the popular demands for change.

What changes can and should be done in architecting Government 2.0 ?

The middle layers of executive and elected people [state & district] can be entirely eliminated and many departments that remain can be dissolved or reconstituted for larger domains, of geographical and functional areas, for greater effectiveness and also efficiency. Panchayats & Municipalities in Gov2 will get greater powers & national government will formulate and execute all policies with much fewer staff members and layers of hierarchies. Executive will also become stronger - and subjected to strict appraisal systems.

The motivation for the new construct is to make democracy work better & nation stronger by diluting divisive forces that discriminate on basis of language and caste or “culture”. We should aim for direct democracy more and representative democracy less. The new construct will make differences in the way the laws ought to be made – the extent of public access and influence over resource allocations and usage – the level of transparency. It will make govt. much leaner & smarter, i.e. more effective and more efficient.

In Gov2 there is no encouragement to parochial sentiments - which result in demands for fragmentation of states and societies or reservations based on languages, castes or "culture". Private enterprise, entrepreneurial traits would receive support, encouragement and respect. National chauvinism would be considered passé and global cooperation would be the norm and regarded as one's duty. People will be guided more by similarities between them rather than differences between them.

The electoral reforms and anti-corruption discussion should come after understanding and voting on the above reforms! Otherwise it would be like opting for a patch work when we actually need a complete rewrite of the program that has too many bugs and that has outlived its usefulness by decades, if not a century.

Referendum is a powerful instrument of democracy that can be used for resolving national as well as regional issues based on residence in different geographical regions. In Gov2 this will be online, therefore, multiple options, multiple issues could be taken up in periodic or frequent referendums. People will decide which subject areas will be usually legislated by elected representatives, by bringing a bill to the parliament, and which shall be decided through referendum. 

Political parties may declare those issues for which they will opt for referendum and those on which they have already taken a position - these will make the election manifesto of contestants meaningful. The number of MPs may be increased - in Gov2 they would be really called upon to work - they will work in the national interest but would be more actively engaged with meeting the needs of their constituencies. The citizen in Gov2 will feel more empowered. The Gov2 programs will be published on the web with targeted and achieved outcomes updated regularly. The planned allocations, pricing etc. will all be handled with complete transparency and participation of citizens or factoring their opinions, wherever possible or of the opinions of their elected representatives.

UK, a unitary state and a constitutional monarchy, has no state governments – they have just two levels – national government which makes all national policies, represented by parliament and local governments (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales are four constituent "countries"). UK has 650 MPs for a population of under 70 million. US is a federal union with each state having its own constitution - so they have huge number of politicians.

India can do with 1300 MPs, roughly one MP for every one million population. There will be about 5000 municipalities, one for each town (larger ones are called Municipal Corporations) and 150K to 200K panchayats for 600K villages. Corporators and “Panchs” will be elected and so will be MPs. There will be no other politicians. Each Municipality and Panchayat will have a website with published programs and outcomes expected. All accounts will be publicly accessible, at high level of aggregation. Through RTI, details can be sought by any citizen.

With the reduced count of politicians and bureaucrats in a flat government with just two layers (central government and the local government ONLY), enabled with ICT and proper systems, more coherent policies and speedier implementation will result. People's voices will become stronger and stand a better chance to get translated into action.

Discussions are invited on what will happen with Gov2.0 structure envisaged above?  

INSTRUMENTS OF DEMOCRACY

The front page headline story in Times of India (Ahmedabad edition of 9th Oct'11), “Singhams unite, back Bhatt” reminded me of the famous Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments of which 50^th Anniversary passed only two months ago. Sanjiv Bhatt, a senior IPS officer is currently in judicial custody (as the magistrate, for over a week now, keeps on giving dates before passing judgment on his bail plea) being prosecuted by State Government and reference to Singham is a film's take on a similar situation (probably, as i have not seen the movie). 

The IPS cadre comprises of educated and well trained officers then why, during the riots of 2002, could they not behave in a more responsible way? Why did they allow themselves to be led to acts of commission or omission which they felt to be bad or even unjust? Their behaviour can be understood by recalling what the “Obedience to Authority” experiment of Stanley Milgram showed.

Following four paragraphs are taken from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/50th-anniversary-of-stanley-milgrams-obedience-experiments.html

Stories of torture, corporate greed, fraud, and misconduct are regular features of daily news coverage. For years, psychological scientists have tried to understand why ordinary and decent people are driven to commit such atrocious acts.  Much of what we know on this topic can be traced to the work of one man: Stanley Milgram. Fifty years ago, Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, began a famous and controversial series of experiments to test the boundaries of people’s obedience to authority and determine how far normal people would go in inflicting pain on others just because they were told to.
The experiment involved forty males who each took on the role of a “teacher” who delivered electric shocks to a “learner” when they answered a question incorrectly. Though the “teacher” believed that he was delivering real shocks, the “learner” was actually part of Milgram’s research team and only pretended to be in pain. The “learner” would implore the “teacher” to stop the shocks and the “teacher” would be encouraged to continue despite the learner’s pleas.
These experiments laid the foundation for understanding why seemingly decent people could be encouraged to do bad things. Thomas Blass, Milgram biographer and a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, says that Milgram’s obedience experiments provided a powerful affirmation of one of the main guiding principles of contemporary social psychology: “It is not the kind of person we are that determines how we act, but rather the kind of situation we find ourselves in.”
“What Milgram’s obedience studies revealed above all was the sheer power of social pressure. Suddenly it was conceivable that the sorts of psychological forces producing conformity that social scientists had been interested in for some time could not only explain fashions and stock market gyrations, but also some of the 20^th century’s most egregious collective behaviors: genocide, the Holocaust, totalitarianism,” says Dominic Packer, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lehigh University.

Today we are a little wiser and we also have ICT. So here is a simple solution for decent people who do wish to be vigilant or who do not want to become “situational victims”. SOLUTION: Form a special interest group, for e.g. On Yahoo - “IPS Concerned Officers Association”. Members may hold discussions and polls on issues of their interest. They can then take a united stand and thwart manipulative bosses without holding physical meetings and getting hounded by media. Association is virtual but the actions are real. Information and Communications Technology can support democracy in real solid ways. Fortunately the IPS folks are IT savvy.  

Fighting corruption: Jan Lokpal Bill implications of implementing it

The version 2.3 of Jan Lokpal Bill has expanded its coverage and power beyond what i would not have dreamt of. 

Its jurisdiction is now over "PM, Ministers, Elected Representatives, All public servants, Judges of the higher judiciary." [Government's version includes only Group A officers amongst public servants at the centre only and excludes PM in office and Judiciary].

Secondly, it can look at many more complaints, " Definition- a complaint means a complaint alleging that a public servant has indulged in an act of corruption punishable under Chapter IX of the Indian Penal Code or under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988; which would also include any offence committed by an elected member of a house of legislature even in respect of his speech or vote inside the house." [Government's version is limited to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988].

As the Lok Pal is supposed to have its own separate wings for investigation and prosecution, it is worth considering the cost of running an effective Lok Pal. [Both Govt and Jan Lokpal are agreed on this formulation].

With 45 million public servants (government employees) and hundreds of judges to be disciplined for any complaint lodged with the Lok Pal (at centre or state), one wonders if the necessary resources required to run the Lok Pal will be provided. I read in the press that in 1972, the original version of Mr Bhushan's version of Lok Pal envisaged an annual expense of Rs. 3.x lacs p.a. and the current version will require a budget of Rs.1,700 crores p.a. (i.e Rs.300K and Rs.17 Billion p.a. respectively). This looks like a gross underestimate and with such meagre resources, the Lok Pal will be no different from the existing organisations which are buried under ridiculous backlogs.

The magnitude of corruption is huge, almost mind boggling. Perhaps it justifies changing the architecture of the government envisaged in the constitution of India. We have three pillars in the government structure - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Having an effective Lok Pal almost means creating four pillars, Legislature, Executive, Judiciary and Lok Pal (Super Referee). The fourth pillar should have a staff strength of 450K persons and with an average salary plus overhead expense of Rs.500K p.a., the annual budget of running an effective Lok Pal is Rs. 225 Billion.

Obviously, the above additional resources cannot be found. So it will mean reshuffling or merging completely the existing resources from police, judiciary, ACB, CBI, CVC into Lok Pal.

So the end result will be that we will have a smart Lok Pal which will reduce corruption in the government but it will be at the cost of higher level or disorder, criminality and increasing back log of cases in the courts in the non-government sectors. This is because Rs.225 Billion would have got carved out of the budgets for the police, CBI and Judiciary.

If on the other hand, additional resources are allocated to Lok Pal and it is ICT enabled, it can perhaps do its job more cost-effectively than the existing organs of the government without hiring hundreds of thousands people. It should be empowered to requisition investigating officers and prosecuting officers as and when required from centre or from state governments on a deputation. 

For reducing corruption, the legislative competence must be improved and the babus who have drafted old set of laws and rules must be replaced and concurrently the old laws and rules should be rewritten in unambiguous language and without the baggage of amendments upon amendments. After formation of Lok Pal, this is the second most urgent step. Accelerating roll out of Judicial reforms in the making, is the third most urgent step. Police reforms are the fourth most important step and electoral reforms are the fifth most important step.

References: 
http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/document/papers/Police_Population_Ratio.htm

Upon Anna Hazare crusade

Anna Hazare and his supporters, ardent and vociferous, and those who may be passive and even sceptical, all are well intentioned folks who want to oppose corruption by throwing out politicians and government apparatchiks (government officers and what about judicial officers, prosecuting corrupt judges is not more important?) whenever evidence of corrupt behaviour is found. And they believe "Lokpal Bill" duly modified by civil folks (mostly lawyers and "activists") will facilitate this much more than CBI, ACB or CVC have achieved in the past (there is talk of merging all these?). Since electronic media has discovered "corruption" makes an interesting story, everyone wants to flog the corrupt officer. Even before evidence is compiled, many fishy episodes get labeled as "scams" and round-the-clock reporting begun by most of the TV "News" Channels to see if TRPs improve.

The real issue is not about prosecuting the corrupt, we should be more concerned about the underlying problems that need urgent attention of experts. Corrupt politicians, executive and judiciary ("public servants”) should be prosecuted undoubtedly. Lokpal Bill by focusing just on corrupt politicians and executives will have a small impact on inclusive growth or the creation of an equitable or just society – a transparent and efficient government.

Please read what USA is doing. What ICT forum can help achieve:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/

http://govinthelab.com/

For architecting Government version 2.0 (which is transparent, efficient and obviously ICT enabled), we need systems and legal experts. Most people have not realized the pernicious effects of poor quality legislations and lousy or archaic systems – I suspect we don’t teach these subjects in IAS schools.

None of the committee members in the Lokpal drafting committee is an IT expert (from the government side - all are lawyers). Lokpal bill itself is about facilitating launching a prosecution against suspects - using the very same government machinery and judicial system, which are known not to deliver results. We should ask why the machinery is not well oiled (how much more grease is needed?), why the judicial system is unable to dispense timely justice? Are the judges of poor quality or their integrity is suspect? Do they work too few hours & take a long recess, they need long vacations? Is the system over loaded? Of the several million cases queued up for decades in various courts, are large numbers on account of poor legislation or lousy systems? [A McKinsey study revealed that 70% of the cases are property title disputes, the next highest matter is "bounced cheques" - under IPC section 138 - the root causes of both these problems by the way are very easy to fix - 1) do away with VII x XII Form designed by Anderson - a bright British clerk, in 1928, and replace the land title records with an online system - many state governments are doing this finally, 2) order the banks and financial institutions NOT to take PDCs from loanees - this practice of taking or issuing postdated cheques is not followed in advanced countries - they do proper checking of credit worthiness of loanees and then advance loans but in India our "respected financial institutions" prefer to apply short-cuts and take advantage of innocent members of public, many of whom land up defending themselves against dozens of criminal cases launched by their lenders following repayment defaults - for e.g. if 12 cheques bounce, the bank would file 12 criminal cases].

Another thing easy to fix: Various government inspectors and officers can slap a claim on any entrepreneur or a business unit or a citizen. The claim is of tax or penalty for violation of ambiguous rules which can be interpreted differently because of poor drafting or series of indecipherable amendments. Even low officers can pass an order and middle level officers can launch a prosecution - normally the rules require the defendant to pay first and appeal afterwards. The government has endless resources (lawyers) to fight cases in courts but the defendant must provide for himself/herself. Should the defendant win the case, nothing happens to the officer(s) who made the claim. If we institute a law that the officer will be penalised even to the extent of 5% of the dismissed claim or two months’ salary (whichever is lower), we would find the incidents of corruption will drop dramatically.

Unfortunately you won’t find people agitating to fix the underlying systems, poor quality legislations and bad systems. The IAS receives training which was probably devised by the British - they are not taught about the pernicious effects of bad systems or the use of ICT. The elected legislators do not receive any training nor are they shown or compelled to study what other countries' expert groups are doing without having to make foreign trips [whenever learning involves foreign trips, they are more than keen to undertake such study tours]. In our big country, bloated bureaucratic machinery, poor quality legislations with huge number of amendments, ill-trained rulers (public servants) are a very big problem. The people who have knowledge do not have power and those with power don't have the knowledge? We need to go much beyond Lokpal bill. We need more than just lawyers to fix the system, they are not trained to use ICT which can transform the system and bring transparency. Now there are many examples of good systems but news channels have yet to discover them.

Leaner not fatter government

Linguistic differences or "cultural" differences, whether minor or major, have been flogged in India to hive off new states. Latest aspirants are people agitating for formation of "Telengana". Many believe these as genuine arguments for demanding separate states. These arguments are not justifiable for many reasons.

1) Democracy does not mean fatter government nor does local governance mean multiple layers of government. We can have more "Panchayats" or urban local bodies like municipalities, municipal corporations without creating more state government positions. Creating a new state, after netting out adjustments of reorganising some departments, is bound to add lacs (not thousands but hundreds of thousands) additional government apparatchiks (babus and clerks) - a new state does not create a single new panchayat or a single new urban local body. Such a massive administrative burden is not only costly, it is completely counterproductive as these new positions will work to increase the transaction cost of doing things. Everyone knows more government means more friction.

2) Today, using ICT we can completely restructure the government - delayer it - cutting out better than 70% of positions - we can make a much leaner, far more efficient and FAR MORE RESPONSIVE government; a government that is more democratic and capable of listening to and responding to people's wishes.

3) Pandering to so called linguistic and "cultural" aspirations encourages parochialism. It does not help the cause of national integration. It does not encourage labour mobility. It does not encourage optimal usage of natural resources for the country - it encourages selfish usage of natural resources for "sons of the soil". It serves to reinforce the value system that suggests that "sons of the soil" is the right policy - chauvinistic forces like "Shiv Sena" draw strength from people who subscribe to this value system.

COMMENTS:

We need to train our legislators and babus to behave in an even handed manner. To balance the demands of people belonging to different ethnic groups and the larger good. This is also what politics is about. 

We are slaves of the system that British left us. [Even the laws are archaic - why don't we have our "legal luminaries" agitate for changing so many ridiculous laws?] We hardly innovate - apart from suffering from "human inertia"; we as a society are still under-confident of devising more efficient systems.  Rather than re-engineering the government structure and processes, many governments have slavishly copied the existing system while commissioning "work-flow" systems that cost billions of rupees - these systems help in moving "tapal" (i.e. a letter) from the top officer's desk to the lowest officer (or clerk) and then the transaction flows in the reverse direction with noting of each babu or clerk. This serves no purpose except to continue the CYA policy and no analysis of issues or weight of public opinion can be assessed.

Today's news paper (DNA Ahmedabad edition -31st Jan'11) runs a story of municipal corporators joining the Face Book with the expectation of getting ideas for city's development or for engaging in discussions and debates with public. It is possible to design and implement a system for a fraction of the cost that our state govt spent (government of state of Gujarat) which will make the government more responsive and capable of re-engineering its structure. Here is the outline of such a system:
a) Build a business process model of the (panchayat or municipal or even state level - depending upon how ambitious you are) government
b) Build the organisation hierarchy (as it exists) of the government
c) Build a directory of people working in the government
d) Assign people to organisational units (created in step (b))
e) Build a communication system that allows people to log in and write a memo that points to one or more "processes", "organisational unit" or "babus/clerks". Allow the user to attach objects to the memo (like a document, scanned image, photo, audio or video clip or a URL)
f) Publicise the system, train politicians, babus and clerks to use the above system - one hour session twice a week for two weeks is sufficient.


The above is nothing but a knowledge management and intelligent communication system. We can build work-flow linked to the above system. We can generate discussions on "problems" and "issues". We can do referendum. We can address complaints and solve peoples' problems quickly. We can analyse the processes and organisational units and govt staffs' performance and frequency of complaints etc. which can serve to re-architecting the department, organisational unit and even the government.