Public Administration and Good Governance

Meaning and scope

Public administration is government in action: putting public policy into effect through organised work.

Woodrow Wilson (The Study of Administration, 1887) proposed the politics–administration dichotomy: politics sets the tasks and administration carries them out. Luther Gulick summed up the work of an executive as POSDCORB: Planning, Organising, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting.

Major approaches

Approach	Thinkers	Core idea
Classical / scientific management	F. W. Taylor, Henri Fayol, Gulick and Urwick	One best way; time-and-motion study; Fayol's 14 principles (unity of command, scalar chain)
Bureaucratic	Max Weber	Legal-rational authority; hierarchy, written rules, impersonality, merit
Human relations	Elton Mayo (Hawthorne studies)	Informal groups, morale and communication shape productivity
Behavioural / decision-making	Herbert Simon	Bounded rationality; administrators "satisfice"
Ecological / comparative	Fred Riggs	Administration shaped by its environment; "prismatic" society and the "sala" model
Development administration	Riggs, Edward Weidner	Administration as an agent of planned socio-economic change
New Public Administration	Minnowbrook Conference (1968), Dwight Waldo	Relevance, values, social equity, change
New Public Management	Christopher Hood; Osborne and Gaebler (Reinventing Government, 1992)	Market mechanisms, outcomes, citizens as customers, "steer rather than row"
New Public Service / governance	Denhardt and Denhardt	Serve citizens rather than customers; networks of state, market and civil society

Administrative machinery in India

• Centre:
  • The PMO is the PM's secretariat.
  • The Cabinet Secretariat is headed by the Cabinet Secretary, the senior-most civil servant. It services the Cabinet and its committees.
  • Ministries and departments each have a Secretary as administrative head, with Additional, Joint and Deputy Secretaries below.
  • Attached offices handle implementation; for example, the CBI and the Directorate General of Health Services.
  • Subordinate offices work in the field.
• State:
  • The Chief Secretary heads the state secretariat.
  • The secretariat makes policy. Directorates carry it out.
  • Divisional Commissioners supervise several districts. Jharkhand has five divisions and Bihar has nine.
• District:
  • The District Collector / Deputy Commissioner handles revenue and land records, law and order as District Magistrate, development coordination, disaster response and elections as District Election Officer.
  • In Jharkhand and Bihar this officer is called the Deputy Commissioner (DC) or District Magistrate.
  • Below the district are the Sub-Division under the SDO, the Block under the BDO, and the Circle under the Circle Officer for revenue.
• Local:
  • Panchayats and municipalities, set up under the 73rd and 74th Amendments.
  • The District Planning Committee consolidates their plans.

Accountability and control

• Legislative control:
  • Question Hour;
  • financial committees (PAC, Estimates, COPU);
  • Budget scrutiny.
• Executive control:
  • ministerial supervision;
  • budget and personnel rules;
  • the CVC.
• Judicial control:
  • writs;
  • judicial review of administrative action;
  • the principles of natural justice: audi alteram partem (hear the other side) and nemo judex in causa sua (no one should be judge in his own cause).
• Citizen control:
  • RTI;
  • social audit;
  • citizens' charters;
  • grievance redress through CPGRAMS and Jharkhand's Jan Samvad and Bihar's Lok Shikayat Nivaran Adhikar Adhiniyam 2015, a right to grievance redress within 60 days.
  • The Ombudsman idea came from Sweden in 1809; India's versions are the Lokpal and Lokayuktas. The Jharkhand Lokayukta has been vacant for long periods.

Good governance toolkit

• Transparency: RTI, proactive disclosure (Section 4 of the RTI Act), e-procurement.
• Responsiveness:
  • Right to Services Acts: Madhya Pradesh first, in 2010; Bihar in 2011; Jharkhand in 2011.
  • Time-bound delivery of services such as caste and income certificates.
• E-governance: single-window systems, land records digitisation (DILRMP), Jharkhand's Jharbhoomi portal and Bihar's Bhumi portals, and DBT.
• Ethics and integrity: codes of conduct (the All India Services Conduct Rules 1968) and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 (amended 2018, which made bribe-giving an offence).
• Capacity: Mission Karmayogi, and state administrative training institutes such as ATI Ranchi and BIPARD Gaya.

Exam tip: JPSC Paper IV mixes theory with Jharkhand practice. In each answer give one thinker or concept (Weber, Riggs, NPM), one Indian institution (DPC, Collector, Lokayukta) and one Jharkhand example (Right to Services Act, Jharbhoomi, PESA Gram Sabha).