Public Administration (SYBA-PAPER-III) Public Participation

Administration and Public

            Administration and public are inseparable entities. The administration is meant for the public. The public administration is the instrument of governance and the success or failure of a modern welfare state and its government is related with the performance of the administration. It is an instrument to realize the ideals enshrined in the constitution and aspirations of the people reflected in the laws enacted by the representative institutions. Harmonization of ‘public’ and ‘administration’ is a key issue present in every modern state or well - being of the public depends on the ‘administration’ and the success or failure of ‘administration’ depends on the trust, confidence, co-operation and initiative of the ‘public’. Any dis-harmony in this regard could be disastrous for both, the ‘public’ as well as ‘administration.’

People’s perception of administration

            In order to cope up with the problem of active participation of public in the process of development the Indian administration must know what public attitude towards administration is.

            The administration Reform commission’s findings on public view of administration are as follows

            a)         Unhelpful attitude on the part of the officials

            b)         Inordinate delays in transacting government business.

            c)         Corruption among the officials.

            d)         Non availability of essential commodities.

e)         Lack of proper attention from the government agencies in providing services to the common man-as for example, government hospitals.

            f)         Favoritism and nepotism in dealing with the general public.

            g)         Unsatisfactory progress of the community development programme.

            h)         Public-dissatisfaction with the Panchayat Raj institutions and

            i)          Inefficient machinery for redress of public grievances at the district level.

Administrative Attitude Towards people:

            The Indian bureaucracy is, by and large, urban-middle class. While performing their duties, they mainly deal with the rural masses who are illiterate and poor. Thus, there is a wide cultural gap between the class of administration and the vast majority of masses.

            The bureaucracy points out that the people are unaware of their rights have no understanding of the problems and make no efforts to get their grievances redressed. They do not have adequate knowledge of the rules, regulations and procedure of administration. People are pessimistic about the assistance from the bureaucracy in getting the things done. There is too much interference in the administration and that the citizens try to bring pressure through politicians.

            People hardly support or co-operate with the civil servants who honestly try to bring about the change in the society.

            Further the citizens deliberately deviate from the sanctioned plans. Thus, tempts the civil servants to overlook and violate the rules and regulations, to ignore and convince at the provisions of law.

People’s participation

People’s participation is self-evident in democratic governance. People’s participation in the administrative process is very basic to its success. It is necessary that participation must be more than symbolic if popular energies are to be harnessed into the development process and id sustaining institutions are to be created to give development coherence and meaning.

In the context of ‘development’ efforts of the ‘Third World’ countries, participation has assumed added significance, as the rich experience gained through decades of development convincingly proved that ‘participation’ is the key to meaningful and authentic people-centric development. Current upsurge in ‘participatory governance’ is, however, a more generic concern related to ‘good governance’ paradigm.

            The institutionalization of participation by all people is a cornerstone of good governance. Participatory governance provides citizens with access not only to information but also to decision making power. Participatory governance provides citizens with access not only to information but also to decision making power. Participatory governance entails the close involvement of people in the economic, political, cultural and social process that affect them and facilitates access towards people-centered development.

Meaning of People’s Participation:

            Participation is generally referred to when common people play a role in the activities of the government. Mumtaz defines it as all forms of actions by which citizens ‘take part’ in the operation of administration. The ‘taking part’ may be of any type e.g., advisory or in decision making or in implementation etc. Public may participate through governmental or voluntary bodies.

            People’s participation in administration means collective and continuous efforts by people themselves in setting goals, pooling resources together and taking actions which aim at improving their living conditions.

            Accordingly, participatory governance means a convergence of social and political participation and the scaling up of participatory methods, state-civil-society partnerships, decentralization and devolution, participatory assessment and other factors. (The Sixth Forum on Reinventing Government held in Seoul (South Korea)

            Participation in generic sense has been conceptualized in terms of citizenship; it is a ‘right’ on its own strength. With such extended meaning of participation beyond traditional voting and political rights, there is a serious search going on in all democratic countries for more participatory approaches to processes of democratic governance.

Modes of People’s Participation in administration:

            Professor S.N. Mishra has classifies the means of people’s participation in administration into four categories:

1.      Participation in Decision Making:

This mode of participation involves generation of idea’s, formulation and assessment of options and making choices- about them, as well as the formulation of plans for putting selected options into effect.

2.      Participation in implementation:

In this, people participate in implementation of projects through resource contributions, administration and co-ordinate efforts and programme enlistment activities.

3.      Participation in sharing of benefits:

In this, people participate in project generated benefits which could be material, social or personal.

4.      Participation in monitoring and education:

This is rural people’s participation in project evaluation, either directly or indirectly, through political activities or lobbying activities or through or through some co-operative organization.

The major objective of participation is to involve people in planning, project formulation, implementation, monitoring and review of local level development initiatives.

            On the other hand, when people involved, they take direct initiative for the operation, maintenance and repair of a facility, which benefits them. Thus participation leads to the building of beneficiary capability. Again, participation means sharing of information not just about needs and deficiencies but also about possible means of solution.

Benefits of Participation:

§  In the planning and programming stages and throughout the implementation of development projects, the participatory process provides important information, ensuring thereby a congruence between objectives of development and community values and preferences.

§  By rationalizing manpower resources utilization, the process is likely to reduce project cost.

§  Any change brought about through development will be acceptable to the community if the local people are involved in setting the stage for change, and mistakes are more tolerable if these are made by people who have to live with them.

§  Monitoring is better, and sustainability of the project is more likely even after withdrawal of the external agent, be it government or NGO agency. Field experience tells us that when people have a direct stake in the provision of their service, they fix things or call attention to them when there is any malfunctioning.

§  Participation is two way learning process in which both administrator and the people become co-learners.

§  Active participation helps rebuild community cohesion and installs a sense of dignity into the community.

§  Active community participation helps rebuild community cohesion and installs a sense of dignity into the community.

Institutionalization of participation is often advocated to enlist community development in local development projects on a regular basis. Local government and decentralization are the common recipes in this context. Panchayat raj in India was recommended in 1957 on the ground that sustainability and meaningful local development would be possible only by the creation of a system of decentralized, participative local government.