PM for fixed tenure for bureaucrats

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said key functionaries like district collectors and superintendents of police should have a fixed tenure.

The Prime Minister said he would discuss the issue with state governments at the National Development Council meet.

This is ironical because former Cabinet Secretary Kamal Pande was removed, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) bowed out of power and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) assumed office last year. The NDA had ensured a fixed tenure for Cabinet secretaries, which the UPA government has not followed.

In July last year, the Prime Minister had written a letter to all chief ministers, advising them against frequent transfers of district heads.

Today, addressing the second national conference of district collectors, Singh said no system could deliver results, if top civil servants were changed without notice.

He favoured a minimum security of tenure for judging their performance. He said a fixed tenure would improve the quality of administration and make it more transparent.

Singh's observation came a day after transfers of the district magistrates of Siwan and Gopalganj in Bihar. They had ordered externment of RJD Lok Sabha members Mohammed Shahabuddin and Sadhu Yadav.

Singh said officers should ensure equal opportunity to people, removal of illiteracy and disease, and foster economic growth.

"In order to be ethically neutral in the context of inequality, you have to be partisan -- partisan towards all disadvantaged people who need the support of the state," he said.

He said in a democracy, politics had to be purposeful and an instrument for social change. He hoped that aberrations in politics would give way to better practices.

"Your job situation is so unique that you have the maximum power to do good," he told the gathering.

He pointed to the Bharat Nirman programme, which he said would provide 100 per cent connectivity to villages through roads, electricity and telecommunications, and ensure 100 per cent safe water supply by 2009.

"I will request you to ensure that the objectives of Bharat Nirman are met," he added.

"We want to make economic reforms an inclusive process. Every section of society must be able to benefit from the process of reform," the Prime Minister said.

He also said the government had targeted programmes for universal elementary education, improvement of rural health through the national rural health mission, universal coverage of mid-day meal, expanded coverage of ICDS and food security through the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, all of which had to be managed at district levels.

Noting that the right to information was a powerful tool for ensuring good governance through transparency and accountability, he said district collectors had a critical role in ensuring full realisation of this right.

It was the constitutional duty of district collectors to fight forces of social and communal divisiveness, casteism, regionalism, and other anti-national forces, he said.

The Prime Minister also advised them to have "a modest and simple lifestyle, and concern for those who work for you and inspire them through example".