The Chief Secretary, who took charge at the beginning of this month, has already held two review meetings with department heads and another is scheduled this week. More importantly, and relevant to the current time, is that to ensure that the review meetings do not turn into a mere ritual without concrete outcomes, he is expected to take up issues pertaining to requirements in government departments. In this respect, he has asked departments to suggest minimum five improvement or reforms, five pending issues that needs to be resolved, details of IT projects under implementation in their departments, and review on Ease of Doing Business reforms. For once, it is not shortage of staff that the already bloated bureaucracy will be talking about but improvements and reforms. We would like to remain optimistic that what the departments suggest would benefit the people and not just the government employee.
To get a proper perspective of why the Chief Secretary’s initiative is important, one has to go back to just some three months ago, when the Chief Minister had spoken aloud of bureaucratic inefficiency leading to delay in files being cleared. In November last, the Chief Minister, in a scathing attack on government employees, had said that there are some who unnecessarily make government files take the rounds of various departments, resulting in decisions being delayed. He had even proffered an example to substantiate his statement and warned government servants to speed up file movement while going on to say that efficiency of the officials needs to improve. For the people of Goa, it was not surprising to learn of inefficiency in government departments, they were and are well aware of it. What they have been hoping for is a change in attitude among government servants that will lead to efficiency.
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So, with the initiatives of the new Chief Secretary, will there now be some change brought about in the manner in which the government staff will conduct their work? That is a question that can only be answered with time.
Doubtless, Goa’s administrative setup needs a revamp. The perfect time for this would be the present and there are two reasons for this. The first being that there will be a new government in place in less than a month’s time and this always spurs the vast army of government workers to show some amount of efficiency especially since the new ministers are in the habit of making unexpected calls on their departments in the early days of their tenure. The second is that the government has been on a recruitment spree and had targeted 10,000 recruitments, of which a large number have been completed. These new recruits have to be the change that is required in the government – in performance and in dealing with the citizens.
Goa has a new Chief Secretary, will have a new government soon and a large back of new staffers in various government departments. The combination is just right for change, but it can happen only if all work together to achieve it. A lot depends on the new batch that has just made it to government service. If they can change the way the existing staff of the government imagines their role, it can still be achieved. The entire State will welcome positive change in the functioning of the government departments. If the wheels of governance move smoothly, it will lead to more efficiency and productive that has been absent from government service for a long time. With luck and hard work, the Chief Secretary may just about be able to bring some change to the manner in which the government administrative staff performs.
