Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that he has more than enough political will to carry out reforms even as he asked the civil servants to work as a team to ensure the benefits of the reforms reach the last mile. Addressing the bureaucrats on the Civil Services Day, Modi said time has come for thinking out of the box, and bureaucracy should change from being a regulator to an enabler of services to public.
“Political will can reform but bureaucracy performs and public participation transforms. We have to bring them in one wavelength. To reform, political will is needed. I do not lack it and may be having a bit extra,” the Prime Minister said.
Asking the senior officers to introspect if their experience is becoming a burden, the PM said hierarchy in bureaucracy remains an issue which has been inherited from colonial rulers and was not left behind in Mussoorie (where civil service academy is located)”.
He also asked the civil servants to use social media, e-governance and mobile governance for the welfare of the people by reaching out to them. The Prime Minister also advised the officers that the social media should be used for public welfare rather than self promotion.
In the context, Modi said that mobile phones were banned from his meetings because he often found officers checking social media sites in the midst of official discussions.
“I see these days that district-level officers are so busy that most of their time goes into it (social media). I have stopped the entry (of mobile phones) in my meetings as they (officers) would take them out and start (checking out social media sites),” he said.
The world is moving from e-governance to mobile-governance and the best equipment needed to be used for the welfare of people, he added. Social media sites were helpful when they were used for spreading information about the good work being done.
“If I am informing the people about dates of polio vaccination through social media, saying that they should come out on a particular date for the vaccination, then it (social media) is helpful. But if during vaccination-related work, I am praising my own photograph on Facebook, then it puts a question mark (on the work done by civil servants),” he said.
Modi, whose speech was often met with cheers and laughter, said that he was not part of the bureaucracy because he did not get the chance “to attend coaching”.
The reference was to tuition classes which many would-be bureaucrats join to be able to qualify for the civil services.
If he had, he said, he would have become a bureaucrat of the rank of a director after serving the people for 16 years. “It is my good luck that I am in public service for the past 16 years...I did not get the chance to attend coaching,” he said.
As his audience applauded, he turned to Nripendra Misra, Principal Secretary in the PMO -- who was sitting on the dais -- and asked him what rank he would have reached after 16 years in service.
“Deputy SecretaryIJ Director,” he said, after consulting Misra. “So I should have come in the director category.”
The PM presented the awards for implementation of the Central Government’s priority programmes. A total of 12 awards, 10 under the five priority programmes category and two under the innovation category, were given by the Prime Minister on the occasion of Civil Services Day.
Under the innovation category, Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district was awarded for the initiative ‘Cashless village Palnar’ and Dungarpur district of Rajasthan was honoured for the “Solar Urja lamps Project”.
For the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, Mizoram’s Siaha district was awarded in North-East and hill States category, while Banaskantha district of Gujarat was honoured under the category of other States. For the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the awards were given to Gomati district (Tripura) and Jalna district of Maharashtra. Solan district of Himachal Pradesh and Nizamabad district of Telangana received the award under the e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM).
Sivasagar district of Assam and Bihar’s Nalanda were felicitated for the good work done under the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana. For Start-Up India, the award was given to the State of Gujarat and for Stand-Up India, the award went to North and Middle Andaman of Andaman & Nicobar islands.
The Prime Minister also released two books “New Beginning” on innovations for the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence and “Fostering Excellence” for initiatives under identified priority programmes.
During the function, “Making New India-2017”, a film by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances was also screened.
Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said that this year, 599 districts participated in the PM’s awards competition, as compared to 74 districts last year. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances made an elaborate exercise through an online platform for young officers and 615 IAS officers of four batches (2013-2016) spent about 2,000 hours and provided their inputs on this platform, he said.