Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been setting new norms on the role of bureaucracy ever since he assumed office. He has now given them a new task: To keep a watch over their political masters.
Addressing the valedictory session of the 16th Civil Services Day, Modi asked civil servants to ensure that taxpayers’ money goes back to them instead of politicians for personal gain.
The Prime Minister reiterated that India’s growth would have not been possible without the immense contribution of civil servants and bureaucrats.
However, he added, that it also fell on them to see to it that all political parties and ministers used money collected from taxpayers in serving the citizens and not for personal gain. “Civil servants, whether from any state or Centre, must evaluate and ensure if the ruling party is changing policies to create new avenues for black money generation for their ‘masters’,”Modi maintained.
Statesman-like approach
Addressing the civil servants as ‘karmayogi saathi’, he advised bureaucrats that all their decisions must be driven with the purpose of national interest only.
This reflects PM Modi’s statesmanlike approach to the relationship between civil servants and the political executive at the Centre and the states in a democracy.
“While every political party in a democracy has its ideology, a government employee must ensure that all political decisions are based on some rationale”, he said.
Modi wanted every civil servant to ask some valid questions about policy changes. Is the ruling political party using taxpayers’ money for its benefit or the benefit of the country? Is it looting the government exchequer for self-expansion and creating its vote bank or utilising the money for making everyone’s life easier? Is it advertising itself with the government money or making the people aware and if it is appointing its party workers in various organisations or creating a transparent process for recruitment? Underscoring that there were two approaches towards a developed India – ‘getting things done’, and ‘letting things happen’, PM Modi urged all civil servants to decide their direction and start working towards it as time was limited.
