Abolish IAS, says Infosys’ Murthy

[Vinay Baindur]

Abolish IAS, says Infosys’ Murthy

DNA / Sreejiraj Eluvangal / Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:17 IST

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_abolish-ias-says-infosys-murthy_1421753

For a country accustomed to gloating about GDP growth figures and taking these as a measure of achievement, here is sobering advice from NR Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys Technologies, India’s second-largest infotech firm. Stop focussing exclusively on 8 or 8.5% growth, look at the sorry state of affairs on the governance front, he said at a function here.

Drawing a contrast between the success of the private sector and the decay and corruption in the government sector, he said: “In areas where public governance is involved, we have hardly made any progress.”

Murthy said the politicians and bureaucrats are trapped in a colonial mindset. “They feel they are the masters and there is no need to show fairness and transparency,” he said.

Murthy, seen as an idealist by many, owns less than 5% of the total shares of Infosys. He will step down as chairman of the company in 10 days.

While admitting to some exceptions, he noted many of the leaders and bureaucrats were completely out of touch with the dynamics of the current world. “Once I was with a senior bureaucrat discussing how badly our high school students had performed in an international competition and he said, ‘we must stop participating in such competitions’,” he said.

The outdated mentality of the political class, he said, is accentuated by an equally apathetic population, which has almost accepted corruption and inefficiency. “For over 1,000 years, the government belonged to someone sitting either 2,000 miles or 4,000 miles away. There is no sense of societal ownership,” he said. “The penalty (for corruption) is minimal. As a result, there is no fear of repercussions and there is no accountability.”

Murthy’s cure, besides tougher punishment, is to abolish the system of generalised administrators under the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and replace it with specialists under a new ‘Indian Management Service’.

The new breed of government servants would have specialised knowledge to manage projects. Their salaries must also be increased to ‘near private sector’ levels, while making 60% of their remuneration variable according to how well they are able to implement projects. “If we had kept track of the activities using a project management software, we would not be where we are,” he said, about the delays in setting up the Commonwealth Games infrastructure.

He, however, refused to encourage speculation that he would join public life. “I am too old. Besides there is already someone from Infosys,” he said, referring to former CEO Nandan Nilekani, currently heading the UID project.

URL of the article: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_abolish-ias-says-infosys-murthy_1421753-all

[K. S. Raman]

This idea is not new.  In the late 50s and early 60s, India tried what was called IMP, Indian Management Pool.  Mr. Hejmadi, then chairman of UPSC recruited bright young people from the private sector, toured UK and US and recruited MBAs from well-known business schools and industries and posted them to public sector industries such as Hindustan Steel. Eventually the ICS and IAS prevailed and it was back to square one. 

 

Going back to the British era, we had what was known as India Service of Engineers, ISE, based on a competitive exam similar to the ICS and FCS, to look after public works.  Now our Railways has its own competitive exams based on which it recruits and trains engineers and administrators to run the railways. I am not aware whether Railways has any IAS officers in its senior management cadre or board.

 

Raman

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From: Vinay Baindur <yani...@gmail.com>
To: CAF2 <citizens-a...@googlegroups.com>; Hu Gov <hu_gov...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed, 11 August, 2010 2:48:36 PM
Subject: CAF8619 Abolish IAS, says Infosys’ Murthy

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[Dwarakanath]

Friends, This is definitely an improvement over our present administration.   I remember there were certain unpleasantness between senior IAS and IPS Officers at the district level wherein the IPS were made to report to the IAS.  It would be preferable to have relevant technocrats Head the departments like Water supply, electricity, Transportation, Public works department,   & Industry.   IPS officers only should head the Police Department , A Telecommunciation Engineer to head the Telecom Department/Wireless.    There is no relevency for IAS to be head of all departments.  We have seen this class all these years.  A change would be in public interest.  dwarakanathdm, nbca

[Ralph Coelho]

Would this be a public privet partnership or privatisation of governance?

Mr Murthy identifies a colonial mindset that is nothing more than a modern version of the feudal mindset where the ruler seen as  father by the subjects and this was there in India long before the British came to India. They bought over the rajahs and jagirdars and today on can buy bureaucrats. In both situations Those who resisted buying out were overwhelmed an lost by the preponderance of those on sale.

 

Strangely he proposes a return of rule by specialists. Mr Murthy is aware that specialist are out of the daily functioning of business which is done generalist who know how to use power and IT to implement the ideas that merge from the specialists. our Planning Commission is one such resource and it is not infrequently , and possibly rightly of being out of touch.

 

What we do need is people with specialist training who acknowledge and live by the principle that the good of the people comes before GDP, personal wealth or building the family corpus.

It is not easy to stick to that path in a culture that measures success by personal wealth and not the impact of service! Check out what our MBA and IIT students list as their goals . Even in service, such as microfinance they  accumulate personal wealth.

Ralph

[lali...@indiatimes.com]

Many of the Centrally-Sponsored Schemes such as the Health Mission, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan etc. are advocating that recruitment of the top posts be from the open market and on a contractual basis.  This will spell the death-knell of the IAS as we know it.  It will also allow for lateral entry of NGOs at the highest level.  I'm not sure that this is such a good thing.  It will make private bodies privy to decisions taken at the highest level and give them access to the natural resources of the country, to plunder at their own sweet will.
Lalita

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[Ajay]

It is not IAS , IMS or any other such 3 letter abbreviation or
acronym , it is meritocracy, transparency & accountability that is
needed & there are many ways to get it.

Good governance is not some thing elusive , it is being practiced in
many a countries fairly successfully in their own ways.

It seems it is only the media & some activists that are on the
forefront of bringing the corrupt to some kind of accountability
today . The rest just talk .

The politician-babu nexus sups together , so they wont kill their
dinner for us .

What we need is to end this fragmentation of effort & put together a
larger , more formidable , directed & united platform to fight them
today , begin to reverse the rot with existing laws we have & strive
to get better laws & host of independent institutions like an
empowered Public Prosecutor , Lok Ayukt , CVC ,CAG that are toothless
now to reign them on tomorrow .

[Shantharam Kamath]

dear all,
 
Sri, Narayana Murthy is right to a great extent. This reminds me of an incident happened about 30 years back. One superintending engineer who had an impeccable record of completing many irrigation projects and other state govt. projects within the stipulated time and estimated cost. he was highly respected not oly by the people of the state, but in the then govt. circles also. Then govt. formed a civil construction corporation under state public sector with that engineer as the managing director. in the meanwhile, this engineer was promoted to the chief engineer grade. the said corporation was doing extremely well  under his leadership. subsequently, govt. created a post of a chairman to the corporation and posted a junior level IAS officer as the chairman. this IAS chairman while presiding over the meetings started questioning the  M D over trivial matters and used to interfere in the routine though he knows little in cicil engineering/construction matters. Unable to bear with this, the engineer took premature retirement. Thus the State Govt. lost the services of an able engineer.
The purpose of telling this is that though the IAS people are by and large good administrators, they sometimes behave as they are masters in every field.
 

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Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:57:45 +0530
Subject: Re: CAF8623 Abolish IAS, says Infosys’ Murthy
From: dwarak...@gmail.com
To: citizens-a...@googlegroups.com

[Mathew Thomas]

Hi,

 

I have just shared with you an article in DNA, today [12 Aug. 10], on page 12, by Jagannathan.

The link in blue color would take you the DNA newspaper. You would then have to navigate to page 12 and click on the relevant article. It would first only give the author's name and copyright info. Clicking again on the article would open it.

 

The article substantially endorses my views earlier expressed in email CAF 8583 of Aug 6, with subject title, “Fighting corruption”, addressed to Dwarakanath and posted to this group. In this mail I said, “I think a first step towards electoral reform could be to expose the nexus of business and government by asking for publication of donations made by companies to political parties and publication of party accounts.”

 

On many occasions, I have maintained that the neta-babu-business nexus is at the root of all corruption.

 

Narayana Murthy’s suggestion of abolishing IAS and appointing technocrats is, according to Jagannathan, “Only half right.” Jagannathan says, “[Narayana Murthy] has diagnosed symptoms, and said little about the underlying disease.”

 

“Appointing technocrats” is hardly a cure for the deep-rooted malaise that afflicts Indian body politic. Narayana Murthy, himself was not much of a success as chairperson of BIAL.

 

Lalita and Ralph have also raised issues regarding the wisdom of such a move.

 

While technology and technocrats could be of some help, they are not the means for rooting out corruption. Jagannathan has given a few suggestions. He says, “The only way to weaken the nexus is by making democracy cheaper and election funding transparent.”

 

This is easier said than done.

 

In my view, the solution lies in people uniting to fight corruption, starting with the electoral system.

 

I shall be working towards this end. I am thankful to those who have thus far volunteered to work on this initiative. We would network with organisations that are interested in pushing this program.

 

I once again request for volunteers. I hope to launch this effort towards the end of this month.

 

Regards,

 

Mathew  

[Mathew Thomas]

Absolutely Ajay. How true!

Regards,

Mathew

[Ralph Coelho]

NGOs are good as lobbyists fro the Common Good. They are dangerous specialist when they get power. Because their primary responsibility is the growth and development of their own NGO institution over the Common Good - on the specious plea that they can do more when they are more powerful.

 

More than specialisation we need honest people whose priority is the Common Good specially of the poor and voiceless.

[Ajay]

If you make the cost of corruption to the corrupt high enough , means
swift prosecution & no protection from their godfathers , corruption
will disappear like surf makes stains disappear .

The second question is of making IAS more efficient & responsive to
todays India . That too is a simple task & many a corporates & even
co-operatives like Amul do it very well. They know how to stay ahead
of others in the changing business environment . They define the
goals , chart out a methodology , make a budget , implement it ,
review it periodically & reach there .

It is no fault of those who enter IAS , most are highly motivated to
serve the country , but the rot around them first makes them
ineffective , secondly cynical & finally they find themselves
surrounded by a sea of subservient , sycophantic & corrupt seniors
with no self respect & find it more beneficial to give in to the
systems , surviving & prospering there after .