NOVEMBER 07, 2016

By Dr G Shreekumar Menon, IRS(Rtd), PhD, Narcotics

RECENTLY, an Advocate sought my help regarding a Show Cause Notice issued to his client. Upon examination of the dispute involved, I opined that it was fully covered by a Board's Circular; even the Show Cause Notice was not warranted. I accordingly advised him to file the written submission along with the Board's Circular to the adjudicating authority, an Additional Commissioner of Customs & Excise. In the evening, the Advocate came to see me and he was clearly upset. Upon enquiring, he told me with great pain that the Additional Commissioner not only refused to listen to him but threw the written submission and the enclosed Board's Circular without even glancing at it. This obnoxious behavior is not an isolated incident, such high handedness occurs, in many Government departments regularly. His brashness comes from his years of experience. He knows the pulse of the organization, the likely reactions of his bosses, and the ultimate outcome. This is what 'experience' is all about. One can handle a situation with aplomb, make it ugly but still handle it with aplomb.This brings us to the subject of experienced officers versus learned officers.

'Experience' in Government service is continually acquired just by the number of years put in service. It keeps automatically accruing, showering benefits like seniority, promotions, and awards irrespective of the knowledge levels of the officer. The continually upward moving escalator of experience does not discriminate on the basis of knowledge, the ignorant and the learned are treated on par. Higher level posts do not demand learning at all; it demands only 'experience'. This stipulation also ensures that each Service remains insulated throughout the career chain, not permitting any kind of lateral entry from other knowledgeable entities to gain entry into the system.

Those ensconced in this insulated hierarchical tube use their 'experience' to filter and refine what they need to know. Organizational culture determines the thought and thinking process of the comfortably ensconced officer. March J.G. and Olsen (1975) in "Organizational Learning under Ambiguity" attribute characteristics of the learning process such as 'thought' and 'emotion' to inanimate objects such as an organization.

Hedberg B. in 'How Organizations Learn and Unlearn' (1981) postulates that "Although organizational learning occurs through individuals, it would be a mistake to conclude that organizational learning is nothing but the cumulative result of their members learning. Members come and go, and leadership changes, but organization's memories preserve certain behaviors, mental maps, norms and values over time."

The experienced officers make use of the norms and values preserved by the Organization, to wade through their career. Learning the regularly changing rules, regulations, procedures are unnecessary for career progression, hence it is a waste trying to be knowledgeable.Most Government officials seem to echo the words of H.L.Menchen "I believe that all government is evil and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time"

On the contrary, constant learning is demanded in professions like those of Advocates, Doctors, Engineers, and Scientists. The system makes the ignorant redundant and otiose. Upward mobility is only for the learned and the innovator. This ensures that those who rise to the helm are all extremely knowledgeable and intellectual in nature unlike many bureaucrats, who are at the helm only because of their seniority. Governments at the Center and the States have been enormously burdened by bureaucrats who are aware only about their seniority. A vast number of our public institutions are not working, under performing or thoroughly mismanaged, due to the government's misplaced reliance on seniority. If at every stage of promotion, the bureaucrat is subjected to a proficiency test in the relevant rules, regulations and procedures, interacting with the bureaucracy will be hassle free and less irksome. Today,most government litigation is centered on the bureaucracy misinterpreting its own rules and regulations. Such a situation does not occur in Singapore, South Korea or even China. This is why their ease of doing business is relatively simple and fast. On the contrary, our bureaucracy believes in issuing show cause notices, like a machine gun rattling bullets, blindly confirming them out of their fear of the three C's – CBI, CAG and CVC. Consequently, it is the economy that suffers. Presently, another turf war is going on in full swing as to who is competent to handle GST. Whether they have proficiency in taxation matters or not, the IAS lobby has already grabbed the top echelons of the GST hierarchy. IRS officers and State sales tax departments are contesting for the second and third slots. Nobody is concerned about the knowledge levels of these officers. I had occasion to attend a GST meeting when the deliberations were in its infancy about two years back. An IAS officer of Additional Secretary rank was making a presentation to a select ministerial group. To a specific query as to the point of taxation, the officer got totally confounded and could not give any elaboration. An IRS officer had to ultimately step in to do the explanation. 'Experience' has given the supreme confidence to the officer to bluff all the way through, even to a group of experts. This kind of brazen audacity comes only from 'experience'. How long can the nation afford to have officers with insufficient knowledge of taxation to have superintendence over tax departments? Recently, I bumped into an Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise, who had worked under me a decade back, in the lobby of a five star hotel. He informed me that he was attending a GST workshop for officers of Central Excise and Sales Tax departments being held there. He laughingly confessed that it is so boring that he came out and preferred to spend time in the lobby. I will not blame him, for, he is retiring next year, and it will be demanding too much if we expect him to learn a new order of taxation which is completely new to him from A to Z. Imagine, thousands of officers in central and state government tax departments, who are in the twilight zone of impending retirement, being forced to attend workshops which are irrelevant for them. As it is there is a disparity in retirement age of central and state government employees. While the central government employees retire at 60 years, their counterparts in various states retire from 55 to 58 years. Thousands of "experienced" officers are compelled to undergo training which they will not be ever implementing.

A politically inspired change in the bureaucracy is needed, and the emphasis should shift to knowledge building rather than meaningless experience. As U.S. President Barack Obama says "We cannot meet 21 st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy."

(The author is Former Director General, NACEN & Multi Disciplinary School of Economic Intelligence; Fellow, James Martin Centre For Non Proliferation Studies U.S.A. Public Administration, Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University, U.S.A., AOTS Scholar, Japan & Registrar, Yenepoya University, Mangalore, Karnataka State, India.)