Governance

            Literally, governance means the processes by which administration of a country is run. It includes the processes by which the rulers are selected and also the manner in which they take and enforce decisions. In dictatorial and totalitarian/autocratic regimes the Government carries out the function of ruling the state through some institutions and unilaterally defines the relationship of the citizens with these institutions. However, in democratic countries, the situation is different as rulers are elected by the people and hence people are able to affect the policies followed by the Government. In many of the these countries, the situation has undergone a change due to involvement of  non state actors like civil society, public institutions, market forces and international agencies who play a vital role in decision making and implementation processes. This brings in the concept of “governance” which broadly implies the involvement of non state actors mentioned above as well as a shift from state centric administration to citizen centric administration.

        As per the Plan Document of the 10^th Five year plan, “Governance relates to the management of all such processes that, in any society, define the environment which permits and enables individuals to raise their capability levels, on one hand and provide opportunities to realise their potential and enlarge the set of available choices, on the other.” United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) defines governance as “The exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels.  It comprises mechanisms, processes, and institutions, through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their differences.”

This brings up an important question, what is good governance? Good governance can be understood in terms of some characteristics it should possess. As per UNDP, good governance  is “-----among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable. It is also effective and equitable. And it promotes the rule of law. Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.” Hence, good governance should be accountable, transparent, responsive, equitable and inclusive, effective and efficient, follows the rule of the law, participatory and consensus oriented.

Relevance of Governance

         Governance is closely related to the well being and quality of life of the people of a country. Most poverty stricken countries are also poorly governed. India has its own share of poor governance. Its implications were discussed in the tenth five year plan document, some of which are as under:

• Poor management of economies, persisting fiscal imbalance and disparities in development.
• Denial of basic needs of food, water and shelter to a substantial proportion of the population.
• Threat to life and personal security due to inadequate control on law and order.
• Marginalisation, exclusion and even persecution of people on account of social, religious, caste or gender affiliations.
• Lack of sensitivity, transparency and accountability in many facets of working of state machinery.
• Lack of credibility of some institutions.
• Lack of incentives/disincentives for people (particularly for a civil servant), subversion of rules, evasion of taxes and failure in getting timely justice.
• Existence of significant number of poor with little opportunities for participation.
• Deterioration of physical environment, particularly in urban areas. 

As per Human Development Report of UNDP for the year 2013 Human Development Index for the country is .546 and the country is at 136^th rank in a total of 186 countries. Poor governance is one of the important reasons for this lackluster performance. On its part the Government has tried to make improvements in the administration. Two Administrative Reforms Commissions were constituted to suggest reforms in administration.  First Commission was constituted in 1966 and the second in 2005. Since its constitution, the Second Commission has submitted reports on various aspects of governance some of which like Right to Information, Ethics in governance and Citizen Centric Administration specifically pertain to subject of Good Governance.

      As mentioned earlier accountability, transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness, being effective and efficient, following the rule of the law, being participatory and being consensus oriented are important characteristics of good governance. Some important points regarding these features of good governance are as under:

• Accountability means that someone who is responsible for doing a particular task can also be held accountable for any lapse or wrongdoing. Presently this aspect is looked after by various agencies like CAG, CVC, CBI and Vigilance sections of concerned departments.
• However, despite these provisions,  fixing of accountability for a lapse is rare, mainly due to the fact that our administrative system involves lengthy procedure involving multiple stages and employees. This makes it difficult to fix specific accountability of concerned officials. The procedure to fix accountability is itself burdened with elaborate procedures, making any logical conclusion within a reasonable time frame, a remote possibility.
• As regards transparency, some progress has been made with the implementation of RTI Act, 2005. Citizen charters are another source of information, though these rarely reflect the actual situation. Most of the Government departments have their websites but again in most of the cases the information provided is quite sketchy and in some cases outdated. Official attitude is still to conceal things rather than to disclose.
• As regards participation, India follows a democratic system of governance. Hence the political system is participative to that extent. However, efficacy of this participation is diluted to a certain extent by the tendency of the voters to vote on basis of caste, religion or region, thereby relegating the issue of governance to the background.
• Panchayati Raj institutions have helped in increasing the participation of previously excluded social groups particularly women. In some urban areas, Resident Welfare Associations have been involved to a certain extent in some of the day to day activities. Views of trade organizations are also sometimes solicited in matters relating to a particular profession. National Policy on Voluntary Sector, 2007 formulated by the Planning Commission also provides for consultation with the Voluntary Sector by constituting Joint Consultative Groups.
• As regards the rule of law, the country has an elaborate judicial system which is fairly independent. However, its effectiveness is restricted by the lengthy and costly procedures and delays in getting the cases finalized. Mostly, the dominant and the powerful are able to exploit the legal lacunae to their advantage.
• Effectiveness and efficiency of the administrative machinery are extremely important for effective implementation of the various laws and welfare schemes. This is the worst aspect of our administration. One of the reasons is the lack of accountability in the system. Another reason is due to inherent problems in the system as a whole. Our administrative system is highly procedure centric and result/targets acquire a secondary position. As a result employees are more concerned about following procedure than in actual delivery of services. This restricts the efficiency of the system in delivering services.
• Historically, Indian society had comprised of social groups which were excluded from the mainstream. These included the lower castes and the women. During the time of freedom struggle and after independence, it was apprehended that the minorities would also face discrimination. This social structure was not conducive for equitable and inclusive growth. Hence the concept of inclusive and equitable growth has been a challenge before the Government. Despite efforts of the Government through various welfare schemes like the MGNREGA, equitable and inclusive growth remains a distant dream. As per latest poverty data, 21.9% of the population lives below the poverty line. This clearly indicates that the growth story of India is still quite far from inclusive.
• In the recent years, corruption has emerged as one of the biggest challenges to good governance. It is visible in all walks of life and at all levels, from a modest amount of a few rupees to scams amounting to thousands of crores.  Corruption cases are mainly dealt under the Prevention of Corruption Act. CVC, CBI and departmental vigilance sections have been formed to prevent corruption. Despite this, it has not shown any signs of diminishing mainly because of lack of deterrent as well as the acceptability of corruption by a section of the society. As per Corruption Perception Index maintained by Transparency International, in the year 2012 India is at 94^th rank among a total of 182 countries.
• Civil Society is a wide ranging term which includes NGOs, social activists, academicians, business groups, media and similar other people/groups. In the last few years, there has been an increase in activism from the civil society. This has been spearheaded by NGOs, who apart from assisting the Government in carrying out a number of programmes have also took up the issue of a transparent, accountable and corruption free Government. This activism was instrumental in persuading the Government to enact the RTI Act. Recently, some of these activists took up the issue of setting up of Lokpal, and although the movement could not achieve that goal, it was successful in bringing the issue of corruption at the centre stage.

Future Road Map

       The issue of governance has also been dealt by the 12^th five year plan which has devoted one chapter in the plan document to the subject. The document refers to three specific issues; one is systematic improvements to increase efficiency of plan expenditure, second is the customer satisfaction on the services delivered by the Government agencies and third is the perception about corruption.  The Plan document proposes to combat these problems by a number of measures which include strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions by allocating a sum of Rs.6437 crores for Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyaan meant for increasing human resource and capabilities of these institutions; making specific provisions in each flagship scheme for social mobilization, generating awareness and social audit; increasing the role of civil society and voluntary sector and institutionalizing Joint Consultative Groups in all forms of planning as proposed in the National Policy on Voluntary Sector, 2007; improving service delivery by making appropriate legal provisions for making the specified service deliveries time bound; combating corruption and reforms in civil services.  

e-Governance

       In the last few years, e-Governance has come up as an important tool in government administration. It is particularly useful in service delivery to citizens in a number of ways. It is faster and cheaper. It also reduces the requirement of physical presence of the citizen thereby reducing the scope for corruption. Due to these reasons, the Government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) on May 18, 2006, comprising of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and 8 components. The objective as mentioned in the vision statement was to "Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man”. Presently NeGP comprises of 31 Mission Mode Projects. A Mission Mode Project is an individual project focusing on one aspect of electronic governance like banking or land records or commercial taxes etc.