ABCD of “Babugiri”: IDENTIFYING AND WEEDING OUT DEADWOODS (24/09/2015)

I often am amused at the topics of discussion among fellow commuters in the chartered, all middle level government servants, working in various Ministries- the center of the ultimate power. This may be anything- like what hike the 7^th Pay Commission is likely to announce, how long will the bio-metric continue- so on and so forth. This is Indian bureaucracy. An adverse comment from the CEO of an overseas MNC (“Reform bureaucracy to attract investment”- Jeffrey Immelt, CEO, GE, TOI, 21.09.2015) never jolts their self esteem, who I consider a race of thick skinned people for whom their personal interest is what matters. “Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits”- US columnist Dale Dauten had very correctly said of Indian Bureaucracy. Such people are in abundance and are not confined to the lower and middle level but at every level of bureaucracy. On posting at New Delhi I was confronted with the ABCD of “babugiri”- Avoid, By-pass, Confuse and lastly Delegate i.e. do whatever you can, to shift the responsibility onto other. Coming from outside Delhi, I often found myself at the receiving end, until a colleague disclosed this “mantra”. The dead-woods are master of ABCD of “babugiri”. As expected, the recent news that the Government intends to introduce a legislation/order to weed out the deadwood from the bureaucracy and tone it up to improve its efficiency, did not cause any flutter in the bureaucracy. While provision for annual review to weed out inefficient officers and staff exists in the Rules (Fundamental Rules 56J), this has seldom been evoked. As per this rule, once a government servant attains the age of 55 years, an objective assessment should be made every year for his continuance or otherwise and he should be handed over his retirement benefits and asked to quit, if his performance is found below the benchmark. Though this exercise is carried out in offices every year quite religiously but I have never come across any case where a Government servant was asked to quit. It would be interesting if the Government gathers information from all its ministries and sub-ordinate office on the number of officers/staff who have been shown the door on the basis of the provision of this Rule. It will draw a blank. These dead-woods are adept in other skills which keeps them afloat- that of apple-polishing. This helps them get good grading in their APAR (Annual Performance Appraisal Report) and keep going. Instead of weeding out deadwood, the Government should introduce a scheme of “Golden Handshake” offering officers/staff above the age of 50 years, half the salary of the remaining number of the years of their service left. This will help the cream of the lot to take a call. The left over are the dead-woods.  I hope the Seventh Pay Commission comes up with such a scheme for Government servant over 50 years of age.