State administration must be purposeful and dynamic: Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI - Asserting that India lives in its states and states have to prosper, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on Thursday said the public administration in these areas must be purposeful and dynamic as the unity and integrity of the country hinges on it.

Addressing Indian Administrative Service (IAS) probationers here, Dr. Singh said: “States, India lives in states and states have to prosper. Therefore, public administration in states must be purposeful, must be dynamic, but please do not forget that our Constitution has made India one large common market. You may work in a particular State, you may belong to a particular State, but never lose sight of the all India perspective that what you do and what you do not do has implication of the development over a billion people that live in our country.”

“You have to play the leading role in strengthening the unity and integrity of our country, in ensuring that all classes and all groups of our people live in peace and amity. Therefore for this reason it is very essential to pay particular attention to the needs of the under privileged sections of our society. It was the dream of the Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, to wipe the tears from the eyes of each and every suffering Indian. That ambition may be too much to ask for but our task will never be complete unless we get rid of mass poverty,” he added.

Emphasizing that a strong, purposeful and visionary government is needed for the management of the mixed economy, Dr. Singh said: “We are a mixed economy. Private sector co-exists with the public sector. And for the management of this mixed economy we need a strong, purposeful visionary Government. We cannot wish away the role of the government in public life of our country and therefore what type of development we will have would very much depend upon the quality of public administration in our country.”

“You have the unique opportunity to make India strong, prosperous and a country which will be lauded all over the world in terms of its achievements, in terms of its commitment to the eradication of poverty, ignorance and disease which still afflicts millions and millions of our people,” he added.

The Prime Minister said: “Our primary task is to get rid of this mass poverty and we have made considerable progress since independence but much more needs to be done. And in making this happen, the role of public administration is of critical importance. “

“First and foremost any civilized country requires a public administration which is able to enforce law and order and provide a feeling among people that we have a just and caring administration. There can be no development without the maintenance of law and order and the maintenance of law and order in a country as vast as ours, as complex as ours would require special skills,” he added.

Dr. Singh further said: “I would also suggest that in recent years, we have laid more and more emphasis on the third tier of development, the Panchayati Raj Institutions. I said that India is too large a country to be administered from the Centre or even from the State capital. We must decentralize power, we must decentralize decision making processes, we must decentralize the various development programmes so that the people at the ground level get involved in what is going to shape the future of them and their children.”

“And, therefore, I would urge each one of you to pay special attention to how we can make the Panchayati Raj in our country a success, we have good examples, we have cases where panchayati raj institutions have not been functioning well, where panchayati raj institutions have not been able to make the type of impact that they should and I hope that I think there will be important case studies which will bring out what it takes to make for an efficient, equitable system of development administration through the Panchayati Raj,” he added. (ANI)