Bimal Jalan is one of India's well-known economists. He was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1997 to 2003. He has held several top positions in the ministries of finance and industry and in the Planning Commission. He was also Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and represented India on the boards of the IMF and the World Bank. His book 'Emerging India' was recently published by Penguin India.
Here's an extract from the book:
Chapter 3
By any criterion, the administrative system is now largely non-functional and unresponsive to the economic and social priorities of the country. The size of the government machinery has increased phenomenally, the number of ministries and departments has multiplied, and more and more programmes to provide relief and services to the poor have been launched. However, as is well recognised, because of administrative apathy, neglect, corruption and diversion of resources, the overall results in terms of benefits to the people have been far below expectations. Last year, in October, we were fortunate in hearing former Chief Justice Venkatachaliah on this subject, who had also chaired the high level Commission on the working of our Constitution in 2002. The Commission, as you may recall, had some highly critical observations on the state of governance, and characterised the situation as "a fundamental breach of constitutional faith on the part of governments"...
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11:35 AM, Feb 22, 2012
