PHOTOS: SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY

RECOGNITION: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh presenting the award for Excellence in Public Administration to Rajiv Chawla to mark Indian Civil Service Day in New Delhi on Saturday. (Right) R.S. Pandey receiving the award.

New Delhi: Asking bureaucrats to remain "politically neutral and professionally competent," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid stress on the "continuing centrality of government" for good governance.

Describing the all-India services and other civil services as "the permanent structure and backbone of administration," he called upon them to preserve their "all-India" character. Dr. Singh was speaking at a function on Saturday on the occasion of the Civil Service Day.

National goals

Underlying the "unifying role" of the all-India services, he told the bureaucrats "they have a duty to ensure that national goals and objectives are kept in mind while acting at the State level. India was designed by the founding fathers of our republic to be one large common market of people and goods. Nothing should be done to erode the cohesion of our country. In an era when our polity is getting increasingly fragmented, the responsibility on the all-India services of maintaining a national outlook has definitely increased and not diminished."

Dr. Singh said his Government was trying to ensure that "the honest and motivated" were rewarded, and "the dishonest are punished." Also, "as a Government committed to appropriate affirmative action for all disadvantaged sections, we will ensure that Constitutional commitments are fulfilled, and that women and minorities, in particular, are properly represented at all levels in Government."

At the same time, he asked them to be "particularly sensitive to the concerns of the weaker sections, particularly the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, minorities, and women and children."

"Inspect raj"

The Prime Minister also talked about the need to re-orient the bureaucracy in the age of economic reforms. "While economic reforms abolished the licence raj, complaints of inspect raj persist — in fact, they may be getting louder."

Asking the civil servants "to shift from being controllers to facilitators and from being providers to enablers," he told them to acquire new skills and capabilities. "They need to master new technologies and new styles of functioning."

Spelling out his philosophy on the role of the government in the era of economic reforms, he noted: "I view the reform of government as a means of making citizens central to all government activities and concerns, and reorganising government to effectively address the concerns of the common people."

Dr. Singh also conferred the Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Administration on Rajiv Chawla, Secretary, e-governance, Government of Karnataka, and on R.S. Pandey, Secretary, Ministry of Steel, Government of India, and former Chief Secretary of Nagaland.

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