The caretaker government after long 32 years has rewritten the directives for the country's main seat of administration, the secretariat, where hundreds of khaki files move from one table to another every working day.
Under the new directives, styled, the Secretariat Directives-2008, the government has fixed time for analysis of an issue, its presentation and approval at different levels of various ministries.
From now on an assistant secretary will get a maximum time of 72 hours for analyzing an application or an issue and present the same before the deputy secretary concerned. The deputy secretary or his or her equivalent will get a maximum period of 48 hours to give comment on the issue and the higher authority will get another 24 hours to dispose of or take an appropriate decision. So, the ministries, in total, will get a maximum of 06 working days to dispose of a file.
What is more interesting is that all these works would have to be done through automated or computer networking system, according to a report published in a local Bengali daily a couple of days back.
It remains to be seen how far the latest move of the interim administration to ensure speed in the process of decision making at the official level is implemented. For, the similar directives, barring the transmission through computer networking, issued in 1976 virtually had no effect on the country's bureaucracy which is infamous for its inefficiency and other irregularities.
It is hard to believe that there would be any tangible change in the usual mode of administrative operations soon for reasons of attitude of the people manning the secretariat, resistance to technology and lack of logistical supports. However, one or two ministries, the finance ministry included, could be exceptions.
Allegations have been galore that the secretariat is a place where decision making process does not get the required speed unless and until 'speed' money is stuffed into the pockets of the officials concerned. There is no reason to believe that particular section of officials will turn into saints under the ongoing 'emergency' rule or being afraid of the tough-talking Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) officials. Unless satisfied adequately, the officials concerned would continue to defy the directives and delay the decision making process. And the new set of Directives has kept provision for such delay. The time-limit fixed for handling files by the officials, starting from the assistant secretary to the secretary, can be extended by taking written or verbal permission from the 'higher' authorities. That provision could prove to be handy for the officials wanting to delay a decision on any issue.
Besides, the officials in most of the ministries are not yet prepared to do file work through computer networking. What is more surprising is that the latest directives have asked the ministries to move files from one official to another through computer networking though most ministries do not have such a facility.
The work-system in the secretariat is still in the pre-digital age with hundreds of third class employees taking notes and preparing files and hundreds of peons reaching the same from one table to another.
The administrative officers in different sections of the ministries do initiate files. These officials are, in most cases, not computer literate. The officials, starting from assistant secretaries at the below up to secretaries at the top, have their own computer operators who take notes and type-out letters and other official documents. The sahibs are basically technology-shy and consider computers in their offices as show-pieces.
The latest directives of the government are very much related to the much-talked-about issue of e-governance. Though a few sporadic steps have been taken to reach information to the people through internet, the government is yet to take any concrete step to digitalize the entire administration.
There is an in-built fear among government officials and employees that automation would automatically prompt the government for downsizing the manpower working at the different tiers of the administration. So, they are very much resistant to any change in the age-old system of manual administrative work which proved to be ineffective and anti-people. However, such a fear is very much logical if one tries to see through the eyes of the government servants. But it is highly unlikely that any government would ever dare to retrench government employees for reasons of downsizing the administration in a country where one in every three persons is unemployed.
If the government really wants to induce speed in the process of decision making, it should immediately embark up on the job of ensuring e-governance at all levels. And to make that happen, the concerned government officials would have to be motivated and made adequately computer-literate.
There is no denying that the e-governance project would require substantial resource allocation. But that would not be a big problem since a number of international agencies are seen to be much interested to help the government implement the project that would ensure transparency and accountability in the administrative operations.
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