Can Government Jobs Deliver Efficiency?

Tanvir ignores the fact that even the best government bureacracies in the world do not match up to private sector for efficiency and customer-friendliness

(Mr. Tanvir Sadiq, 31, was born in Srinagar and attended the Burn Hall School. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Information technology and management from Orissa University. He is the youngest Municipal Corporator of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and was elected from Zadibal Constituency. He has contributed regularly to local newspapers like the Kashmir Times, Kashmir Images, Greater Kashmir, and Kashmir Monitor. He was associated with many programs on Disaster Management of J & K and did a couple of programs on highlighting urban poverty. He is active in State politics and his interests are writing and social work.)


An Inept Bureaucracy

It has been my attempt to write my feelings as events unfold. As a result, many of my posts are political whereby I offer my analysis of the current political happenings in Kashmir. Some other posts are non-political while others are outright silly. I do not attempt to be an all knowing person, but I do have a fair knowledge of the political atmosphere brewing in Kashmir. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I am involved in politics myself.

Today I would like to further develop a couple of the ideas that I have been writing about in the last little while. My goal is to analyze in detail all the possible employment and developmental avenues for Kashmir, and this I seek to accomplish by presenting my case in a series of write ups where I will try to develop each idea as comprehensively as I can. This post is going to deal with an issue that I consider is of utmost importance if we seek to utilize our limited resources wisely. It deals with remedying our over-burdened and inefficient government service by curtailing the operations of inefficient departments.

I have mentioned in my earlier posts that we all are aware that most Kashmiris would rather be employed in the government services if they could get a chance. This seems to be the norm and I do not fault anyone for desiring a stable and sustainable form of income. In particular, the last two decades have seen this as the only source of income that was unaffected by the turmoil. Government servants are guaranteed to receive their paychecks regardless of whether they show up at office or not. Who would not desire such an easy source of income? I salute the new CM for getting down to business from day one, and sending a clear message that non-punctuality and absenteeism will not be tolerated in the government workers anymore.

Although this will send a clear message to the government employees to show up for work and they will be in office as required, a closer look is needed to get to the root of this lack of interest in work. In my opinion, some departments are useless and an unnecessary drain on our limited resources. Would it not be more sensible to reallocate the focus areas of these departments that would be more in tune with what the more pressing issues facing our governments are? I would like to emphasize that I am not advocating the dismissal of any government employees but what I am suggesting is re-assigning them different tasks that would make their jobs more useful to Kashmir.

For instance, even though we have had the department of floriculture and horticulture for many decades in the valley, yet, how come we are not even on the map of the world producers of cut-flowers? or why is it that our fruit growers are still utilizing ancient techniques in growing fruits when the same acreage is capable of producing hundred times more fruit than what they are at this time. Clearly, these departments have been unable to do adequate research in bringing technology from world leaders in these fields and educate our farmers in these new agricultural technology. For instance, New Zealand apple growers are capable of producing 400 times more apples per acre than our Kashmiri fruit growers. The main reason for this variance is that the New Zealand farmers were fortunate enough to be educated by "agriculture extension officers" as they are known there, in modernizing their production techniques.

Government officials should have the initiative to be innovative and have the vision to see what would make Kashmir more progressive in areas that their departments are concerned with. Instead of waiting for the CM to spoon feed them and pull them by their fingers. It is easy to follow orders but if they really want to earn their wages and excel in their jobs, then they have to start thinking out of the box and start thinking of ways of bringing in new technology from other parts of India and overseas and adapting it to be more suitable to Kashmir. That was the whole reason why such departments were introduced to begin with, to modernize our agriculture. They have failed to deliver because I do not see Kashmir on the map of the world leaders in the production of fruits, or cut-flowers, or bulbs, or even sheep. Therefore it is time that we re-assign these departments other tasks that require critical attention at this time.