JK PANORAMA LATEST ISSUE

THE STATE OF THE STATE
“'Faiz' kyā jāniye yaar kis aas par muntazir haiñ ki lāaegā koī ?habar
Mai-kashoñ par huā mohtasib mehrbāñ, dil-figāroñ pe qātil ko pyaar aa gayā”
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hen accountability (ehtisab) is understood as a performance
audit as well besides a fiscal one will the mohtasib be seen to
Wperform his or her job of ehtisab. In other words, there is a need
to have another watchdog to watch this watchdog. An examination of the
demographic of public thronging the secretariat suggests that there is a
pretty large number of people from the moffusil towns and even remote
villages that seek redress at Srinagar for matters that should have been
addressed at the village level or at the most by district administrations. On
paper governance is decentralized to a certain extent, but is it so on ground?
Ideally only about ten percent of the cases related to governance should
have to make its way to the state secretariat, and only policy matters should
need the direct attention of the Chief Minister. But we seem to have an
inverted pyramid as far as the state is concerned. The situation at the
national level is no better. The hands-on, pro-active approach by Prime
Minister Modi in running the affairs of the government does not square up
with his much asserted 'maximum governance, minimum government'
promise, unless he understands government to mean bureaucracy.
Sometimes it is difficult to decide who actually is the Minister of External
Affairs of the country, Modi himself or Mrs. Sushma Swaraj? Likewise, is
Arun Jaitley the Finance Minister or the Defence Minister when he is not
the chief spokesman of the government, a role he has assigned to his own
self? The government at the centre seems to be made up of just about half a
dozen of ministers, who are beginning to look more and more like members
of the Roman senate. The other ministers seem to have become superbureaucrats.
In our own state, the case is not much different. Civil
administration seems to be concentrated in the hands of just a handful of
people, not all being elected representatives of people or government
appointees. These people decide on much that is supposed to be
government with all its wings, organs and departmental structure. What a
district magistrate is empowered to decide gets decided elsewhere. How a
Chief Minister ought to lead the government, or the Prime Minister lead the
nation appears, sometimes, confusing to people at large. It is hoped that,
henceforth, there is clarity on several issue that worry the people of this
land, on issues that are emotive or induce insecurity among sections of
people, or trends that appear to cause an amount of unease or doubt in the
general population.
anor
05 AUGUST 2017 P a
ma