RE: GAO equivalent?, babu culture

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Charudatt wrote:

> 	In general, your point is well taken that legislators need
> administrative and research support. 

> 	Is there any movement now streamline the way decision making is
> done by making information available through computers? Or
> alternatively, among the administrators in this group, does anyone have
> a proposal for getting rid of the babu culture that still dominates
> government business wherein a clerk can paralyze plans worth millions by
> losing a file or making some cryptic notation on a file. I suppose I'm
> saying that technologically the babu/file system can be thrown out where
> information access is the key to petty power and corruption. What would
> it take politically and technologically to change the system?

The other day I was researching on something on Social Security in the
USA. I sent over a question to the Social Security Administration - a
quite complex question, really, by e-mail. I got a response in a couple of
days. I was flabbergasted!

In India such a response from a government office, and that too so
quickly, would have been unheard of. When I sent over a request for some
data to officials in India - both from Australia and from here, I got
precisely the same, i.e,. no, response.  In both cases, my father had to
collect the data (very basic data) personally for me, to help me prepare
my reports.  So much for the advantages of being a common man in USA and
being a very senior civil servant in India!

In our ideal Manifesto/ agenda, we must put in these:

* Quick response to people. If anyone complains, with evidence, that his
query was unresponded to within one week of making that query, the head of
that office must be shot! (Well, at least terminated from his or her job,
immediately, without recourse to any appeal).

* Complete computerization and building intelligent web pages with huge
	amounts of data for the people.

* Publishing all government documents on the web in all formats.

* Building a huge trunk network for the internet.


Sanjeev