<b>A K Bhattacharya:</b> Time to trim the bureaucracy

A leaner bureaucracy would help PM Modi keep his promise of maximum governance with minimum govt

Has the strength of the Union government’s civilian employees gone up or declined under Narendra Modi as Prime Minister? Given Modi’s promise of maximum governance with minimum government, one would expect that number to decline.
 
Indeed, at the end of the first year of the Modi government, the total number of civilian employees on its rolls did go down, though marginally by a little over half a per cent. The trend was maintained at the end of the second year, too, with a further drop of 0.63 per cent in the number of employees to 3.28 million.
 
Surprisingly,