Finance Minster, Arun Jaitley would soon be presenting the budget in the Silver Jubilee year of economic reforms that began in 1991. In terms of the impact on the destiny of this nation, 1991 remains the most epoch-making year after 1947. If independence brought about political change, economic reforms transformed the economic, social and cultural fabric of the country.

The metamorphosis brought about by the economic reforms, has created infinite legendary stories. For the sake of those born in post-1991 era, here are my favourite picks of the transformation brought about by economic reforms.

·         Cable TV Business, born in 1991, then operated by gully gundas. In its morphed avtar  it has now graduated many ladders and is operated by the most respected industrial house of India.

·         Organised Retail, born in 1991, then employed a handful people in a single store in Andheri. Today, its digital cousin creates millions of jobs across the India and operates without any store.

·         The Delhi-Mumbai telephone call, now costs just 1% of its 1991 costs (Rs 30 per min), probably a world record for deflation in commodity prices.

·         Fax machines, were then a prerogative of few corporate offices, now find place in every Indian’s pocket in its new avatar called whatsapp.

·         Hinglish, in 1991, was seen promoting only one cooperative sector brand on a few hoardings in Mumbai. It now enjoys largest advertising space across nation and has transformed itself into the lingua franca of almost all MNC brands.

·          Engineering population which grew by a few thousands every year in 1991, thanks to technological progress powered by economic reforms, now sees addition of a million every year.

·         A young actor who signed his first Bollywood film in 1991 has now morphed himself, into a billion dollar entertainment conglomerate. SRK has became SRK Ltd (acting, production, animation, theme destination, sports franchise and more…), netting annual profits more than 90% of the listed companies. Thanks to global appreciation for Indian software skills, our engineers became NRIs and saw ShahRukh Khan as a source for espousing their Indian emotions. Using these emotions as the raw material and capitalizing on the business opportunities provided by the economic reforms, SRK became SRK Ltd

And these were just a few tiny droplets on the tip of the iceberg of the titantic transformation brought about by economic reforms. But amidst such revolutionary mutation, if one thing remained unchanged, it was the Government’s bureaucratic machinery. Files still move along a ladder system, decisions remain birthright of key Civil Servants, process innovation remains low on priority and interacting with govt still remains the most hated job.

Paradoxically, it is the economic reforms themselves that have been responsible for this paralysis in Govt’s bureaucratic machinery. By opening up markets, economic reforms ensured attractive career options in private sector for the graduating classes of 1991 onwards. Bright students started preferring private sector jobs over Govt jobs, thus reducing the quality of intake in Govt jobs. To make matters worse, high performing senior Govt officers also started switching to private sector for greener pastures, resulting in further depletion in the quality of govt machinery. It is this lowered efficiency and poor bandwidth of government machinery that is restricting the next flight of the economic reforms.

If various industries are the spokes in the Wheel of Economy, the government machinery is the hub. However strong the spokes may be, a weak hub would ensure the wheel remains inefficient. Governments will come and go but if Government machinery remains weak, Achhe Din will keep eluding us. 

Improving the efficiency of the Govt mandates an urgent need to reverse the “brain drain” from the Govt machinery that has been the key cause of this deterioration. The only way to achieve the same is through infusion of expert and efficient personnel from private sector into Govt at various levels. It may sound strange but is actually not so. When private legal professionals can become Judges of Supreme Court and take path breaking decisions, when private businessmen can become MPs and can take key policy decisions, then why can private professionals not take key executive decisions as Govt Officers. When The Judiciary & The Legislative, the others two pillars of the Govt and when even the fourth Estate can use expert private professionals, why should The Executive be necessarily deprived of the services of specialists and experienced personnel ? Why should it be necessary that the government can be served only by babus who are life time govt employees ? If an IAS officer can become CEO of a large corporate why can the reverse not be possible? The IAS comprises country’s top brains but it would be unfair to expect them alone to manage today’s technology dominated world, infested with rapidly evolving aspirations of the citizens. 

Since 1991, the govt could show year-on-year growth by opening up one sector after other, infrastructure, insurance, telcom, banking, etc. But the big change that now has the potential to revolutionise the nation in the next 25 years is opening up of the Govt sector. Professional management of PSUs (Maruti Suzuki, Balco etc.) has given outstanding results. Professionalising Bharat Sarkar would result in much bigger gains, given larger inefficiencies.

Time has, therefore, come to use the energies and expertise of large no. private personnels to power the govt machinery and take reforms to the next stage. If the energy and emotions of few lacs of NRIs can be used by an individual to morph himself into billion dollar entertainment conglomerate, imagine what the energy of millions of Indians could transform this largest democracy into. After the Silver budget, can we look forward to Ab ki baar, professionalise sarkar ?