Wayanad relief: Kerala HC asks Centre to consider relaxing norms on outstanding debt

New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS) It is heartening to note that the Centre is actively engaged — primarily through the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister — in examining the matters that came in the way of an efficient public-oriented ‘delivery’ by the government machinery.

A general definition of ‘efficiency’ applicable to all situations is that it is ‘a measure of productivity per unit of resource — money, manpower or time’. Consequently, any step that makes a process cost-effective without adversely impacting the output, will also add to its efficiency. ‘Ease of doing business’ has rightly been made a testing ground for scrutinising the performance of those who manned the Ministries at decision-making levels. Bureaucratisation is being addressed by eliminating obscure and obsolete laws and rules, revising timelines for implementation and redefining accountability at different steps of the hierarchy.

There is so much to do in this regard and the government has to be complimented for launching the move. Finding ways and means of reforming governance is a ‘task’ that had to be assigned to competent people with the needed experience and interest — like those who hold responsible positions in highly empowered bodies like Niti Ayog and Economic Advisory Council and had an inside view of the governance. The traditional practice was to constitute an Administrative Reforms Commission which — judging from the past — used its autonomy only to take its own time in producing volumes of reports that were full of generalities. ARCs made few points of identified deficiencies and seldom spelt out practical ways of resolving them. The importance of both ‘structure’ and ‘process’ reforms has attracted greater notice ever since Donald Trump, President-elect in the US, announced that Elon Musk would oversee a Government Efficiency Commission to bring about improvement in the governance of the democratic state.

Three things have to happen in India for the governance to get an upgrade in terms of the service it provides to the people — ensuring quick implementation of decisions made, putting in place built-in systemic checks against delays in ‘delivery’ caused by inefficiency or neglect and taking effective measures to eradicate corruption. To set the right environ, it was necessary to discard laws and rules that had lost their relevance because they essentially catered to the colonial set-up or became totally redundant on account of the world shifting to a new age of communications and refinement of legal obligations. There was a need for a thorough review of the institutional entities within the government and ‘autonomous’ bodies existing under the umbrella of the Centre, to judge their contemporary utility and purpose and make the required changes by way of closure, organisational restructuring and merger. Also, it is the acceleration of ‘digitisation’ that has become the universal call for reform in governance — especially needed by an advancing economic power like India. Fortunately, the present regime is making brisk progress in this direction. Online work — with due regard to security — has proved to be a great instrument of efficiency, cost-effectiveness brought about through saving time and manpower as a ‘resource’ and operational learning for knowledge enhancement.

Participating in a media event recently, Sanjeev Sanyal member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister, highlighted the ‘nuts & bolts’ reforms being carried out to make for efficient governance. He drew a line between ‘structural’ and ‘process’ reforms and explained how the latter were being prioritised — ranging from discarding of many colonial-era laws like Labelling laws and the Weights and Measures Act to the winding up of defunct organisations that were allowed to keep going as ‘autonomous’ bodies even when they served no purpose in particular. He stated that online processing of matters requiring clearance from multiple Ministries in a time-bound fashion was already adding to the ease of doing business.

The massive bureaucratisation in India has always been a challenge to the speedy delivery of project work and the attention being given by the Modi government to the much-needed reforms in governance would be deeply appreciated by informed citizens. The call for ‘Digital India’ was timely indeed and it has already helped the forward march of the Indian economy in a highly competitive world and also ensured that India was able to function as a welfare state as well because of ‘direct transfer’ of monetary assistance to the needy. Digitisation will help to actualise the concept of ‘minimum government maximum governance’ which implies that we must move towards a slim bureaucracy where the empowerment and accountability of each member of the administrative hierarchy would be clearly defined.

At the macro level the idea of ‘process reforms’ looks great and hopefully the results will start showing up, soon enough. The objective of reforms is to make bureaucracy people-oriented, less corruptible and performance-driven — this will require a strong system of supervision in which any serious failure or dereliction of duty at any level is to an extent blamed on the immediate supervisor too. This should apply right up to the top of the hierarchy. There was earlier a noticeable trend of senior officers of All India Civil Services — who largely head the administrative machinery in the Centre’s Ministries and in the States — shirking from making crucial decisions and developing an unhealthy dependence on their political masters in this regard. The tendency to wait for ‘a nod from the above’ passes down the line with the result that the wisdom accruing from an objective examination of the pros and cons of a project is denied to the decision-makers. Political executive changes now and then but the bureaucracy is there all the time and it is expected to do what was in the best interests of the democratic nation.

In the Indian context, the political executive at the Centre does not bring its own administrative heads to assume power — unlike what happens in the US — and this allows for a distinction to be made between those who run the regime and those who take care of the machinery of the government for implementing policies framed by the former. Process reforms therefore need not be impeded by the political complexion of the ruling dispensation — in reality though, politics did influence bureaucracy in setting the direction of ‘reforms’ and fixing priorities. In the Modi regime, the initiative for reforms that made the governance service-oriented has come from the Prime Minister himself.

There is no gain in saying the fact that in a democracy the non-elected bureaucracy can often decide the fate of the elected leadership as people might evaluate the latter on the basis of what the administration brought to their table. Policies may have been framed with the best of intentions but it is the manner of their execution that would attract or disappoint the people affected by them. Good governance, therefore, entails a role for the political executive in ensuring that its decisions are promptly and correctly implemented.

It has to be mentioned that while ‘ease of doing business’ was guaranteed by the government of the day, the success of a corporate body in the highly competitive world of our times, depended a great deal also on its capacity to see the ‘opportunities and risks’ lying ahead in the concerned areas. These would be indicated by business intelligence and that is the reason why leading businesses invest in processing all information of intelligence value available within and outside of the organisation. Also, citizens of a democratic state must have an idea of what threats — external or internal — faced the nation and they should be willing to contribute their mite to the handling of the same. This will happen provided the style of governance of the existing regime convinced them that the latter was totally committed to the safeguarding of national interests in all spheres. In this backdrop, a well-informed society would add to the ease of doing business.

The machinery of the government would do credit to the regime if it was efficient, sensitive to the people’s needs and known for an image of uprightness, impartiality and firmness. All reforms should aim at achieving this. A regime that upholds nationalism, promotes unity without distinction of caste and creed and follows the principle of equality before the law, gets due recognition from the people and adds to the incentives and morale of the businesses, too.

(The writer is former Director of Intelligence Bureau.)

–IANS

dcpathak/kvd

Bengaluru, Dec 16 (IANS) Prime accused in the sensational Atul Subhash suicide case Nikita Singhania changed her location every day to avoid arrest and tried to obtain bail in the case, said police sources on Monday.

Three accused in Atul Subhash’s suicide case — his wife, her mother and brother — who were arrested by Bengaluru Police, were sent to 14-day judicial custody on Sunday.

Atul Subhash’s wife Nikita Singhania was arrested from Haryana’s Gurugram and her mother Nisha Singhania and brother Anurag Singhania were nabbed in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.

Police sources, while giving details about the arrest of the accused, stated that the special teams which went to Uttar Pradesh had found that the accused had locked their houses and left after getting the news of the arrival of Karnataka Police teams. The police had pasted notices on the walls of their residences asking them to appear before the police within three days.

The special team gathered information about the accused and listed out the close relatives and friends suspected to be in touch with them. They were also monitored. As the accused made calls only on WhatsApp, it was difficult to track them.

However, Nikita Singhania, made one phone call mistakenly to one of her close relatives. Based on the tower location the police went to Gurugram in Haryana and found that she was hiding in a PG accommodation in the Rail Vihar area. She was detained by the police in the city.

The police grilled Nitika and got her to make a phone call to her mother Nisha Singhania and brother Anurag Singhania. After tracking their location, the police picked them up from Jhunsi town in Uttar Pradesh.

The accused were questioned later for nine hours during the transit time to Bengaluru and ensured that the 2-year-old baby boy was in the safe custody of one of her relatives. The police recorded the statements of the accused persons before presenting them to the judge.

The police can take custody of the accused persons on a body warrant if their investigation is required. On the other hand, the family of Nikita is preparing to file a bail plea in the court.

Nikita Singhania has claimed that she never harassed Atul Subhash and she was living away from him for three years. Meanwhile, the family of Atul Subhash is claiming custody of Atul and Nikita’s 2-year-old male baby. Bikas Kumar, brother of deceased Subhash has claimed that the family wanted to see the baby.

The accused persons were produced before the court and were sent to judicial custody for 14 days. After nabbing the accused persons, the Karnataka Police brought them to Bengaluru on Saturday late at night.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that Atul Subhash had planned to commit suicide 15 days before taking the extreme step. He had written the death note three days ago and searched legal matters on Google.

The police registered an FIR against the accused persons under Sections 108, 3 (5) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) on December 9. Bikas Kumar had lodged a police complaint alleging abetment to suicide with the Marathahalli police in Bengaluru.

The FIR was lodged against Subhash’s wife Nikita Singhania, mother-in-law Nisha Singhania, brother-in-law Anurag Singhania and relative Sushil Singhania. The police are yet to arrest the fourth accused, Sushil, in the case.

Bikas Kumar alleged in the complaint that false cases were lodged against his brother by the accused and had demanded Rs 3 crore to settle the case. He had also alleged that his brother was taunted in the court during the proceedings that he had to either give Rs 3 crore or commit suicide.

Nikita’s family had alleged that the deceased Subhash demanded a hefty dowry from her family which resulted in the death of her father.

Subhash, who was working with an automobile company in Bengaluru, allegedly committed suicide as a demand of Rs 3 crore was made for a divorce settlement. He ended his life at his apartment in the early hours of December 9, leaving behind a 90-minute video and a 40-page death note, explaining how harassment by his wife Nikita Singhania and her family compelled him to take the extreme step.

The note left by him read: “If the court decides that the corrupt judge and my wife and other harassers are not guilty, then pour my ashes into some gutter outside the court. Don’t do my ‘asthi visarjan’ till my harassers get punished.” However, the family collected the ‘asthis’ from the Bengaluru crematorium where Subhash’s final rites were conducted. The family stated that the ashes would be taken to Patna, from where the family originally hails from and it will be immersed into the river as per the traditions.

The suicide note, under the headline “Justice is Due”, addressed to his 2-year-old child, read: “Now with me gone, there will not be any money to loot and I hope that they might start to look at the facts of the cases. Someday, you shall know the real face of your mother and her greedy family.

“I pray that they don’t devour you and your soul. I often laugh when I remember that I started saving money for a car when you go to college. Silly me. Remember this always that you don’t owe anything to anyone. Don’t trust the system.” Subhash further listed out his last wishes in the note. “All my case hearings should happen live and people of this country should know about my case and learn the terrible state of the legal system and misuse of law these women are doing.”

He also requested to allow the suicide note and videos as his statement and evidence.

“I fear that the judge might tamper with the documents, put pressure on witnesses and can adversely affect other cases. Based on my experience, the Bengaluru courts are relatively more law-abiding than Uttar Pradesh courts. I request to run the cases in Karnataka in the interest of justice and keep her in the judicial and police custody in Bengaluru till the trial goes on,” the note read.

He further wrote: “Give the custody of my child to my parents who can raise him with better values. Don’t let my wife or her family come near my dead body. Give maximum punishment to my harassers though I don’t trust our legal system too much. If people like my wife are not put behind jail, they would be more emboldened and will put more false cases on other sons of society in the future.

“To wake up the judiciary and urge them to stop harassment of my parents and my brother in false cases. There shall be no negotiations, settlements and mediation with these evil people and the culprits must be punished,” the letter read.

–IANS

mka/dpb

Chandigarh, Dec 16 (IANS) Haryana Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shyam Singh Rana on Monday said that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann should follow his Haryana counterpart and promptly resolve the issues of protesting farmers.

“Since the Haryana Chief Minister is providing minimum support price (MSP) on all crops, the Punjab government should also follow the Haryana government’s policy in the interest of Punjab’s farmers,” the Agriculture Minister said in a statement.

The minister also expressed concerns over the deteriorating health of agitating farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal. He said the Punjab government should take care of Dallewal’s health and efforts should be made so that he could end his hunger strike.

On the farmers’ call to resume the Delhi march on December 18, the minister said Punjab and Haryana are the biggest producers of foodgrains for the central pool and farmers of both states were getting the benefit of MSP.

He said the Punjab government should also ensure that all farmers of Punjab could sell their produce on MSP like they do in Haryana.

The Punjab Chief Minister should play his role and come forward to talk to the farmers so that they can return to their homes. The minister said the Supreme Court had already formed a committee of experts to resolve this issue but the farmer leaders did not attend the meeting with the committee appointed on this matter.

A day earlier, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav along with the director of Union Ministry of Home Affairs Mayank Mishra met farmer leader Dallewal, who is on fast unto death to press the Centre in support of their demands, enquired about his health and requested him to end his 20-day-long fast.

This has been the first meeting between the Union government and a farm leader since talks with farmers remained inconclusive in February.

The 70-year-old cancer patient Dallewal has been fasting at Khanauri, the border point between Punjab and Haryana, since November 26 in support of their long-pending demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops, loan waiver and reforms to improve conditions in the agricultural sector.

After meeting the farmer leader, Yadav told the media, “We came to enquire about the health of Dallewal.”

Without mincing words, he said, “We have heard whatever his (Dallewal) demands are. There was no proposal of any kind (over the demands). I came here to hear him and also for implementation of the Supreme Court order.”

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher has announced to halt trains in Punjab on December 18 to lodge their protest.

–IANS

vg/uk