Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's address at Collector's Conference

"I express my joy to be in your midst and to participate in this interaction with District Collectors assembled from various parts of our country. I have had a chance to sit through the presentation of the results of your deliberations spread over the last few months and I congratulate the Cabinet Secretary, the Personnel Secretary and the Minister, Shri Suresh Pachauri, for the initiative that they have taken. As I listened to some of these presentations, I felt there was indeed a lot of food for thought and I am very happy that our District Collectors are operating on the frontiers of knowledge. That augurs well for the system of administration that we have evolved in our country.

When I was a student some 50 years ago at the University of Cambridge, I had a very distinguished teacher Lord Nicholas Kaldor, a great Economist, he used to insist that there was no technical necessity for any economic or social system to do better than the other. What really made the difference to the functioning of any system is the mindset of those who made the critical decisions of a nation's political, social and economic life, and who are the people who make the critical decisions of our nation's life? Politicians, one has to reckon with, but the 600 odd Collectors who administer the Districts are an important linchpin of that establishment. No system can survive without having an establishment and by establishment, I mean a group of people who have a stake in the long-term well functioning of the system. In a democracy, political masters are selected by the people and in theory, they are the ones who provide us the sense of direction in which our polity ought to evolve. And in a democracy that ought to be the case. But one has to reckon with the fact that all is not well with the way our political system functions.

The Constitution of India and the founding fathers of our Republic set before us lofty ideals and goals. The Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in our Constitution constitute the talisman which should guide our conduct. But we all know that there have been aberrations. Politics in a democracy has to be a purposeful instrument of social change. Politics in a poor country has to mediate between societal tensions, which are built into the body dynamic of a poor society trying to modernise itself. Unfortunately, many a time politics becomes the instrument of self-aggrandisement. And many a time, it ceases to be a purposeful instrument of social change. I am quite sure that these aberrations will give way to better days in the years to come. I do not despair, but one has to reckon with the realities as they exist. During this transition period, that is now on the horizon, it is the duty of all of you to rise to the occasion, to steer our Republic's ship in the desired direction as laid out in the Directive Principles of State Policy. And that is why I said, if there is an establishment, you are the establishment in this country, you are the only people who have secured tenor and who are, therefore, obliged to take a long term view of the evolution of our polity. Politicians come and go and the way elections come, there is frequent change of political masters, many a time they don't have the occasion to think about the long-term consequences of what they are doing. And as I said, our country will get out of this present transitional phase, but in the meanwhile the ship of the Indian State has to move and has to move forward and more so, because we are operating in a world where human knowledge is increasing at a pace which was unthinkable even two decades ago. Modern science and technology have made it possible as never before in human history that chronic poverty does not have to be the inevitable lot of a majority of human kind. Poverty eradication is a feasible goal provided we make full use of modern science and technology and we evolve the social engineering technology of using that knowledge to achieve the basic purposes for which our polity was founded.

Great importance is attached to the tuning of our Civil Servants. Great importance is attached to ensuring that our civil servants remain faithful to the Directive Principles enshrined in our Constitution, that our civil servants operate on the frontiers of knowledge that Constitutional values, the quest for equality - social, economic, political, that the State is an instrument for wiping out tears from the eyes of those who are disenfranchised, who are at the bottom of social and economic ladders, and that there is a commitment to social equity as well as excellence . These have to be the guiding principles, which should guide the conduct of our Civil Services.

All of you have to view yourself as role models. In a poor country like ours, some key decision makers, their conduct, their behaviour has a multiplier effect. And therefore, it is all the more important that our administration should be in the hands of men and women of character, of integrity, of ability who remain steadfast in their commitment to the ideas and ideals enshrined in our Constitution. Over a period of time, there has been growth of fissiparous tendencies in our country. It is partly built into the democratic process. Comparative politics creates tensions as well as it enables processes of mediation to sort out the division of people on the basis of religion, caste, language and State. An All India Service like IAS should never forget that their basic loyalty is to the Union and the Constitution that defines what India should be. As I listened to the presentations, I was impressed that here in this room, we have those, whom I recall as essential component of the establishment of our society, that their heart and head both are in the right places.

I congratulate the Cabinet Secretary, the Personnel Secretary and Shri Pachauri-ji for having taken this initiative to bring you together, to reflect on processes of change, to reflect on policies, programmes and projects, which have a crucial bearing on the future evolution of our polity. I sincerely hope that with the ideas and ideals which have been projected today, we will work together in months to come to give them practical shape to reform the process of governance in our country. I am, therefore, very heartened to note that inspite of the rough and tumble in the life of an administrator today, you have all retained the analytical ability to understand the problems that lie at the core of your work and come up with possible solutions to improve our system of public administration at the grassroots. This ability to analyse, assess, diagnose and resolve issues and problems in a turbulent and changing world is the fundamental reason why this country needs an All India Service like yours. These are, of course, skills, which are not job of task specific and can be transferred across posts, regions and different levels of Government. The Collector or the District Magistrate remains even today the linchpin of the administrative system in India more than a hundred years after the creation of this Institution by the British and the more I think, whatever may be the view about colonialism, I think, the British Empire was an act of great adventure and enterprise and creativity. The institutions that we have inherited - many of them have served our country well - an All India Civil Service happens to be one of those prized institutions, which I think has been a proud legacy of ours for above a hundred years.

The founding fathers of our Republic were wise men. They recognised the need for an All India Civil Service even though it was a legacy of the British Raj. As Sardar Patel said, " We will not have a united India if we do not have a good All India Service, which has the independence to speak out its mind and which has a sense of security. I need hardly emphasise that an efficient, disciplined and contented service, assured of its prospects as a result of diligent and honest work is the sine-quo-non of sound administration under a democratic regime even more than an authoritarian rule". This quote from the great Sardar Patel captures the essence of the values that are critical in your work - being skilled and competent, honest, diligent, efficient, independent and ready to speak out your mind. These are values that we must cherish and they will certainly pay off in the long run, for yourself and the nation. Despite the temporary aberrations here and there, over the years the role of the officers has changed. Indeed, revenue collection is the least important of tasks today. You have become agents of change, of good governance and development administration at the very base of our democratic structure. The insights you gain during your tenure at the district level stands you in good stead throughout your career because it gives you a first hand experience in dealing with the hopes and aspirations, the lives and livelihoods of our people. The State and Central Governments benefit immensely from this district level administrative experience very early in the lives of our administrators.

At this point, I would like to draw your attention to the changes that are sweeping India and indeed the world as a whole, particularly during the last two decades. We are today living in an increasingly integrated and globalised world. Distance in many ways has lost its old meaning. Distances are shrinking and markets are merging. Competition is the name of the game and the role of the State is being redefined in many sectors. In many manufacturing and service sectors, the Government is moving from being a provider of goods and services to being a regulator and facilitator ensuring fair play and adherence to standards of integrity and efficiency. Increasingly, Government's attention and indeed expenditure pattern is shifting towards the provision of physical and human infrastructure to enable individual players to compete in the evolving enlarged and at times global markets. The Government has also the obligation to ensure that the benefits of growth trickle down to all sections of the society, to ensure that they become equal participants in growth processes. At the same time, the Government has to ensure that those who are adversely affected by the winds of globalisation are able to adjust to new realities and economic opportunities.

In this redefined role of the Government, the cutting edge of a Government's function is at the district and lower levels. I think someone said India lives in States, I could amplify that to say that India lives in districts. Therefore, the provision of education and health facilities for improving human infrastructure, provision of physical infrastructure, improving economic opportunities for marginalised sections of society, preparing the society at large to face the challenge of disasters - natural disaster as well as manmade disasters - and who can forget the role of terrorism in disturbing all civilised societies in the world that we live in. We have to be prepared to meet all this challenges. And these are all functions which are best performed by local bodies and district administrations. As we sit in Delhi and try to design a template for a humane, caring and prosperous India, we are aware of the criticality of your role in this process - your role in ensuring good governance at the grassroots, in promoting innovation, in improving service delivery, in enhancing public private partnerships and in ensuring outlays become outcomes. I believe that unless we reform governance from the village level upwards, there can be no real reform at the National level. And what I heard this morning gives me confidence that we have men and women in this room who can be trusted to be active agents of improving the quality of our governance in the years to come.

This task of improving the quality of governance at the village and panchayat levels, vests directly in the hands of the elected representatives of the people at the panchayat level and in the hands of Collectors and fellow officials at the district and block levels. The role of the Collector in our system has always been a most critical one. The Collector is an inter-sectoral functionary who is the source of strength of this institution, which stood the test of time. Over the years, the role of the Collector has dramatically changed adding on several development-related responsibilities that do complicate his or her basic regulatory functions. We have also had a major shift in our administration through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, which sought to revitalise local bodies and create elected representatives down the line. Though this was expected to whittle down the powers of the Collector, our historical experience is that the role of the Collector has only been transformed into a more powerful one of coordinator, facilitator and a person who is responsible for inter-sectoral coordination of various activities that characterise the work of our grassroot administration. There has been a deepening and broadening of political process in India. It has deepened through Panchayati Raj and broadened through societal actions by NGOs, civil society groups and professional bodies. Today, the test of a good Collector is his ability to work with the people, to inspire them, to realise their latent potential and their latent creativity. It's a job in which human resource management, strategic planning and strategic thinking, financial management all need to come together. Our development experience so far has been that decentralisation is not merely a political imperative but as much a managerial necessity given the large size of population in our States. Even a district in our country is similar to a province in other countries. It is, therefore, a managerial imperative to strengthen the middle management level in our delivery system for effective delivery of public services and this has to be at the level of the Collector.

To my mind what is as important as the skill set of a Collector is the attitude that he brings to bear on his job. We are a country that is characterised by uneven development between regions and between people. The major challenges that you have in most districts is to ensure a general equality of opportunity to all people, removal of mass illiteracy, disease and foster economic growth and development. In order to be ethically neutral in a context of inequality, you have to partisan - partisan towards the poor, partisan towards the weaker sections, partisan towards minorities, women and SCs and STs and all such disadvantaged people who need support of the Indian State. You operate in a society that has several inherited prejudices built into our social fragment and in this environment you have to become a beacon of change and lead by example. You should be conscious of the fact that while being sensitive to the imperatives of democracy and majority rule, you must be alert to minority opinion. You must learn not merely to tolerate but respect dissent because your job requirement is that of forging a consensus among contentious claimants. The attitude that you bring to bear as a head of a district is what would be emulated by the people who work with you. I, therefore, appeal to all of you to have an abiding commitment to social equity, particularly for the marginalised sections of society and work to make them genuine partners in process of social and economic change.

It is of course your constitutional duty, your obligation to fight the forces of social and communal divisiveness, of casteism and regionalism and other anti-national forces and tendencies in our body polity. Its my firm belief that what we are experimenting in our country is something unique in the history of the world. Never before has a country of one billion people sought to bring about a social and economic revolution in the framework of an open society committed to protect all fundamental human freedoms, committed to the respect of law and therefore all over the world, people marvel that such a country exists, a country of one billion people trying to seek its salvation, trying to manage processes of social and economic change in the framework of a functioning democracy commitment to the rule of law and respect for all fundamental human freedom. I do believe that all societies of the 21st century will be multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. So the experiment that is being performed in this ancient land of ours, has great historical significance and I believe if we succeed, we will influence the course of human evolution in this 21st century, which has just begun. Therefore, all of us, howsoever small, are partners in a great enterprise. We are small people thrown up into big chairs. But we are on the threshold of an era of immense opportunities and immense challenges and all stakeholders of our social, economic and political system have to work together to realise our manifest destiny. As I said in particular, I appeal to you all to have an abiding commitment to the pursuit of social equity, concern for the marginalised sections of society and to work, to make them genuine partners in processes of social and economic change.

Your role in the evolving dynamic setting, in which change we must, but must remain committed to the pursuit of excellence and we must harmonise the commitment to the pursuit of excellence, to the pursuit of social equity. This is a sacred duty we all have to perform in the service of the nation and our nationhood and our posterity and our prosperity. Our Constitution is a living guide. It is supreme and you are duty bound to uphold it. The values of our Republic are sacred and we must work together to protect and preserve these values. The more I read the Constitution, the more I am struck at the great reservoir of wisdom possessed by the founding fathers of our Republic. I think those values have stood the test of time. We are all to work in harmony, in concert, to ensure that this value system continues to guide us all in the 21st century. As I said in the beginning, we are living in a world where human knowledge is increasing at an unprecedented pace. Therefore, we all have to be willing to think new. Your job is precedent and procedure bound but as young men and women working in the 21st century, you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are living in an innovation driven world, in a demanding polity and a plural society. Old solutions may not work. You should be able to provide a leadership in tune with the demands of our time.

I believe all of you have a unique opportunity today in mediating societal action for development. The structures of Panchayati Raj are in place but they need to be infused with new vitality. These organisations enable you to mobilise collective action for development. India's great strategic resource is its people. India has a billion opportunities in its people and you must all see that those opportunities are converted into a permanent advantage for our country. Many of the challenges that you face in your district, be it the education challenge, the water challenge, the health challenge or the employment challenge, the solution may lie in enabling people to handle change and improving service delivery. A Collector therefore can provide a leadership to this task of nation building. As we try to create an environment conducive to creativity and enterprise, your priorities should be clear. We want to make economic reform an inclusive process. Every section of society must be able to benefit from the process of reform. This will mean immediate attention to issues of agriculture, rural development, health, education, infrastructure, focusing in particular, on the weaker sections and ensuring of communal harmony at all costs. Our Government is in the process of finalising a focussed programme called 'Bharat Nirman'. Under 'Bharat Nirman' we have a target of providing 100 per cent connectivity to India's villages through roads, electricity and telecommunication and ensure 100 per cent coverage under safe drinking water supply by the year 2009. In addition, we aim to create one crore hectares of additional irrigation and 60 lakh houses through the Indira Awas Yojana. You are going to be the critical agents for ensuring that the new deal to rural India genuinely transforms rural lives and livelihoods. If Parliament passes the Employment Guarantee Bill, and I believe, it will be passed in the next Session, we will launch a major new initiative of providing a minimum amount of work to all able-bodied persons who are seeking work in rural areas. I invite you to prepare yourselves to meet the challenge of Employment Guarantee Programme. I invite you to work out before hand a shelf of projects and programmes which will convert this employment guarantee into a major national effort to improve the quality of our physical infrastructure - economic and social infrastructure.

I would request you to ensure that the objectives of 'Bharat Nirman' are met and met fully. We are also, as I said, about to legislate an Employment Guarantee Bill which will cast heavy responsibilities on the district administrations. You have the responsibility of preparing a shelf of projects spread over regions likely to be affected by scarcity of work. You have also to ensure proper implementation in the right spirit. Work through contractors and machines sometimes destroys the very purpose of this right. I appeal to you to rise to the challenge of implementing this Act when it becomes a reality. We have similarly targeted programmes of universal elementary education, improvement of rural health through the National Rural Health Mission. I heard some presentations which said that there should be a holistic approach to the management of healthcare facilities at the district level. This National Mission does precisely that. It will enable probably for the first time a holistic view being taken of the key health priorities in each rural district of our country. Universal coverage of mid-day meal, expanded coverage of the ICDS programme, agricultural transformation through the National Horticultural Mission and addressing food security through the Antyodaya Anna Yojana - all of these programmes have adequate funds and they have to be managed at the district level. So, your ability, your motivation will be the most decisive determinant of where India is in the next 10 or 15 years. I would urge you to ensure that the goals of these programmes are fully met in each of your districts.

I have had a chance to understand the problems you perceive in improving the quality and outcome of your work. Some of these are being addressed through Right to Information, the portal just launched and the National Rural Health Mission. The Right to Information is a powerful tool for ensuring good governance through transparency and accountability. You have a critical role in ensuring that the mechanisms are put in place for the full realisation of this right.

I have noted the other issues and I assure you that we will address all these issues. One important issue, which has risen not only today but many times before, is security of tenure of key functionaries of district Collectors, of Superintendents of Police and I do recognise that you are entitled to ask for this. No system of Government can deliver if people can be changed without notice, short tenures do not produce accountable results. I do recognise the difficulty, this is a matter in which the Central Government by itself cannot move, we have to work with the States but I do propose to bring this subject before the National Development Council as an integral part of improving the quality of our administration making it more transparent and more accountable. If we are going to pursue these goals, it is necessary that our Civil Servants should be entitled to a minimum security of tenure so that they can be judged whether they are equal to the tasks, which have been assigned to them or not. Also I assure you, I learnt a great deal from these new innovative programmes. We have to learn from best practices in various parts of our country. There has to be a networking so that these best practices become infectious, they spread from one part of our country to another and if it is necessary to set up an innovation fund to promote innovation in governance at the grassroots, I am all for it. And I also believe that we must institute a viable system of national awards for rewarding outstanding public service. People talk about the power to do good. Your job situation is so unique in that you have the maximum power to do good in each of the places you work. You should make it an experience worth remembering. We now have much more resources today in our country to change the world around us than we have had ever before. We have an explosion of ideas. We have a society that is becoming increasingly more politicised but also more vigilant. These are opportunities not available to your predecessors. Therefore, be idealistic enough to take up this challenge of building a new India free from the fear of war, want and exploitation. Be innovative enough to look for new opportunities. Be sensitive enough to contribute to creating a just and humane society. Be modest and lead decent but simple lifestyles eschewing conspicuous consumption and extravagant living. Have concern for those who work for you and inspire them through example.

I urge you to combine your commitment to idealism with a passion for excellence. Unless we inculcate this commitment to excellence at the grassroots level, and at the earliest stages in one's career in the Civil Service, it will not be possible to create an environment of growth and development at the national level. As members of the most prestigious of our Civil Services, you must impart this message, of seeking a commitment to quality and excellence in the work we do. Compassion must be combined with competence. That should be the motto of a meritocracy like yours. You have my very best wishes."