Individual excellence vis a vis the safety of group effort

The ability to distinguish between noise and information is an essential quality of a good manager. It is not uncommon, especially in large bureaucratic organisations, to find a great deal of unnecessary information being gathered and hardly put to any use, if ever.

In the late 90s I was working as a Joint Secretary, in the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. As part of my attempt to streamline the functioning of various divisions of that department I came across a desk that was patiently collecting wholesale and retail prices of various agricultural commodities from over 300 market yards in the country.

Quite apart from the time it took for the information to travel from the point of origin to the desk, a transit period that trivialised its significance, I found that most of the input was of no primary value. When I queried the officer in-charge about the purpose of that exercise, he surprised me by confessing that he had no idea either!

As a matter of fact, pointless and otherwise, that function ought have been transferred to the Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, which had been existence for a few years by then!

A loyalty to the status quo and resistance to change are typical of systems in the government. In the year 1997, Shri Kamal Pandey was the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DOAC) in the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and I was serving as a Joint Secretary in that Ministry.

Among other subjects, I was handling Policy Planning and was charged with instituting innovative and contemporary methods of dealing with issues which the ministry was concerned with. Naturally some of the initiatives questioned the basis of established and time-tested approaches, methods changing which met with expected resistance.

Making the annual forecast for the food production of the country was an important function of the DOAC– a responsibility entrusted to the Economic and Statistical Advisor (ESA). Shri Pandey and I discussed with Dr. G.S. Ram, the then ESA, the desirability of altering the structure of the methodology followed in making the forecast. The extant practice was to consolidate estimates obtained periodically from the various State and Union Territories of the country.

The primary estimates were generated by the Economics and Statistics departments of the states/UTs which were based on the conduct of crop cutting experiments for different crops in the Kharif and Rabi seasons. I felt that this approach could be substantially refined by infusing into it the principles of modern tools such as the discipline of Econometrics and the technique of Crop Modeling. Dr. Ram was reluctant to embark up on what he felt was needless tinkering with a method that had proved adequate until then. On my initiative the Secretary prevailed up on the ESA to adopt the new approach.

A forecast was accordingly produced the - showing a likely deficit of about three million tonnes of wheat in that year compared with the known requirement. This fact was brought to the notice of the Ministry of Food and was placed before the Union Cabinet, which decided to import the said quantity of wheat.

The responsibility was entrusted to the Ministry of Commerce which, in turned, gave the job to the State Trading Corporation of India (STC). An Argentinian private company won the tenders floated by STC.

The wheat supplied, however, was upon inspection at the time of import, found to be infected by a pest. Most of the northern and western regions of the country are wheat producing areas and wheat is not widely consumed in the south or east. It was therefore decided not to discharge the wheat in to the market. As a result it was lying in the godowns at the port of import.

Overtime the wheat began to rot. The issue was raised in Parliament, and not surprisingly, and inquiry ordered into the matter - to be conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). And the first thing that investigating agency wished to know, upon commencement of the investigation, was the identity of the person/agency that putout the estimate in the first place!

Clearly not only was Dr. Ram in a potentially difficult situation but also it was I who landed him there. While nothing untoward eventually ensued, the relative safety – of the consolidation of a large number reports received from various sources at several times- vis- a- vis the application on the part of individual of his expertise to the exercise was brought out vividly!

There is a feeling, especially in the middle rungs of administration, that accountability is transiting from being a requirement to becoming an obsession. While it is a most desirable and forward looking step, the coming into being of a new ethic of accountability following the enactment of the Right to Information Act has brought with it also the need to ensure that the ability to perform on the part of individuals and agencies is not unduly compromised on account of apprehensions caused the raised bar of accountability.

Like in many other areas of public administration the two compulsions, both equally important, namely the freedom to act in good faith without fear of being needlessly found fault with and the need to remain accountable for one’s actions – have to be harmonised.

Else, the integrity of the ambience pervading the apparatus of governance can be adversely impacted. This can cause conflict and doubt in the minds of those tasked with sensitive functions involving use of the discretion and individual analytical skills.

Unless this balance is brought about, the imperatives of excellence in performance and compliance with the demand for accountability can act at cross purposes and prove unproductive in the long run.

Dr Mohan Kanda is a retired officer of the Indian Administrative Service who was formerly Secretary to the Govt of India, Ministry of Agriculture, Chief Secretary to the Govt of Andhra Pradesh, Member, National Disaster Management Authority of India .

By:Dr Mohan Kanda