Bureaucratic Indecision and Risk Aversion in India

Abstract


 
 
 
 The Indian bureaucracy suffers from indecision and risk aversion, resulting in an inordinate focus on routine tasks, coordination failures, process overload, poor perception, motivational issues, and a deterioration in the quality of service delivery. We argue that bureaucratic indecision, in large part, is a form of rational self- preservation exercised by bureaucrats from the various legal and extra-legal risks to their person, careers and reputation. These risks originate from problems of organizational design, institutional norms, and other political factors. The research for this paper included a review of interdisciplinary literature on bureaucracy and policy decisions, combined with semi-structured interviews. We interviewed current and ex-bureaucrats from India and other Asian and African countries, political scientists, and other policy researchers. We also conducted a document analysis of historical and contemporary, administrative, and legal documents, including committee reports, acts and rules, annual reports, and other government publications. We summarise the evidence on factors such as penal transfers, overload, inadequate training, process accountability, contradictory rules, and political patronage.
 
 
 

Relationship between Law Making Procedures and Bureaucracy in Modern India

“…On the other hand, "bureaucracy" consists of a major relation with "public administration" as it is regarded to be the most efficient mechanism of the administration. The Indian "bureaucracy" has been identified to suffer various issues and conflicts regarding indecision [23]. Failure of collaboration, "process overload", motivational conflicts and the high influence of caste and religious factors pose vital influences on the "bureaucracy system" and induce risk factors.…”

“…The bureaucratic system of India suffers from the bureaucratic indecision and risks those results in coordination failure, poor perception, deterioration in the quality of public service delivery and process overload. The main risk factors of bureaucratic indecision are financial obstacles, policy implementation delay and unintended consequences [17]. Bureaucratic indecision can be the cause of financial obstacles in policy-making and it affects public policy development.…”