If first generation of reforms were crisis driven, the second generation had to be consensus driven meant to concentrate on reforms in governance.
• Make government departments accountable to the people by annual audit of performance • Do away with blanket job security of the workers • Make delivering service the supreme hallmark • Change the outdated laws • Bring changes in Judiciary by making them accountable • Community Policing should be promoted
Not only is the influence of government institutions in India is colossal but their importance is higher taking into consideration the socio-economic backwardness of the millions of Indians. Be it Police, Judiciary, local administration or for that matter most of the government departments, the governance seem to be caught in the colonial time warp hardly reflecting the changed realities of democratic and modern India. So as the cases keep piling across the courts in India (30 million on last count) and the image of the Police remains horrific, the faith of the population would definitely be less on any thing called 'Government'.
India's 19 million odd government employees are sadly known to obstruct more than serving the public good. And despite the combined spending (by the central and the state governments) of more than Rs.30 billion, India has ranked poorly in the 'corruption' survey of the Transparency International. In fact, 75% respondents of the Transparency India stated that corruption have steadily increased during their lifetime. UNDP went a step further to claim that if corruption in India came down to the levels of the Scandinavian countries, the GDP growth would increase by 1.5% and not only that the FDI would jump by a minimum of 12%. Further the economy of annual bribery in India is estimated to be around Rs.210 billion!
Governance in India then has to look incisively into these fundamentals to create changes for future of India. If ever economic reforms are to succeed in India, then structural changes are mandatory in these core sectors.