The Hindu : Shourie for reforming Government system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 14, 2004

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Shourie for reforming Government system

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 13 . The Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, today stressed the need for "massive reform" of the Government system which he described as an ocean with government structures being like a coral reef. He suggested reinvesting governance in the country by doing away with the needless functions of numerous departments and Ministries.

Addressing an India Today conclave, Mr. Shourie said that the workings of Government were like a maze with the core competence of many officials and Ministers being that they knew the turns in the maze. People were so used to the existing system that any effort to speed up things was viewed with suspicion both in Parliament and by the media.

In addition, there was a fixation on certain things such as the Government needing to have 51 per cent shareholding in a company for control, which Mr. Shourie felt was out of tune with the present times. In this context, he cited the case of corporates such as Reliance Industries Limited which controlled companies by holding just 26 per cent equity stake and taking legal measures to ensure control. He argued that multiple layers of governance without any reason were not only slowing down economic growth but also hurting the nation's reputation.

Referring to the Government structure, he said when lapses came into public view, another layer was added to take care of the situation. He felt that there was excessive hierarchy in the system with the views of those on top coming to have much greater weightage.

Among the possible ways to make changes, he suggested that rating the States and Ministries could go a long way in improving the situation. He proposed that investors choosing a particular State and shunning another, should publicly cite the reasons for doing so.

In the case of the Disinvestment Ministry, he said it was the smallest one but its compact team had done innovative work and faced obstacles as a team.

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