BJP to implement administrative reforms if voted to power: Parrikar

PANAJI: BJP will implement administrative reforms and change the way the bureaucracy is working in India, including bringing in professionals from outside as bureaucrats as followed by the British currently, if voted to power, the party's Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar told TOI.
In an interview on Thursday, he said that BJP has also chalked out a plan to empower people where required, as empowering people in every decision would jeopardize government functioning. He was making an obvious reference to the style of functioning of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), which he felt was a deterrent to governance.
The Goa CM said he has had a talk with the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on government restructuring to provide an effective administration and "this will definitely happen under Modi. To make these changes, one requires a strong person like Modi at the helm of affairs".
Asked whether the BJP had plans to change the bureaucratic set up in India, Parrikar answered in the affirmative. "What I feel is that there should be unilateral entry into bureaucracy, and the system of IAS and IPS has to be more oriented towards the local situation. There has to be more freedom for good officers to percolate down the line and most important part is the regulatory mechanism has to be only skeletal and not detailed in nature. Today's mechanism results in total bureaucratic collapse."
Parrikar said BJP has internally decided that there has to be less of bureaucracy and the role of government where public delivery is concerned will be reduced.
BJP will go in for privatization of certain sectors like the Railways and Air India. Under the plan, only services like train running and flight operations will be privatized. Policy making and major decision taking will remain with government. "The railways could be turned into a profitable venture and its assets can be exploited to benefit improvement in its network. While lower class fares could remain subsidized, higher class fares could be competitive just as in airlines," he said.
Parrikar felt that Air India need not be totally controlled by the government and if it has to be efficient, a professional management needs to be brought in. A bureaucratic management will never bring Air India out of the woods, he said and added that whether it has to be sold to a private player was a different issue and "I differ on that. I am a half socialist and half capitalist".