GOVERNANCE MAXIMAL, GOVERNMENT MINIMAL
The purpose of government is to govern. That way, any government's primary function is to govern by ensuring security and development. Its institutional apparatus is to give legitimacy and effectiveness to governance through a well-laid-out mechanism of systems, procedures, and processes. The tripod of systems, procedures, and processes needs to be managed, controlled, and monitored for governance effectiveness. The tripod is more or less common to various types of governance, whether democratic or non-democratic.
In a broad sense, governance is about the culture and institutional
environment where an enabling access mechanism is in place for participation by the citizenry and stakeholders in matters of public importance. Simply put, it is beyond the institutional
system and tools of the state to go in
alone for good governance bereft of non-governmental actors or institutions. The non-government actors
include civil society organizations, not-for-profit organizations, the media,
trade unions, cooperatives, associations, etc. These non-governmental actors
have considerable influence on governmental legislation, policy framing and
implementation, effectiveness, and legitimacy.
It may also refer to "the exercise
of political and administrative authority at all levels to manage a country’s affairs." "It comprises the mechanisms, processes, and
institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests,
exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their
differences."
Democratic governance is always preferable. By its very nature, it is more inclusive, transparent, participatory, shared, responsive, and accountable so as to take care of the basic needs of the people, including those related to the rights issue, as well as to make responsible management of public resources in a judicious manner within the framework of the law of the land. All other forms of governance are subordinate to the democratic one, as they are neither responsible nor accountable.
However, on the issue of "good governance," there emerges a "values perspective" or "values analysis." As there is no universally acceptable definition, what is "good" in one context may not be "good" in another context. A "democratic government" may not always be a good government, nor is every type of "good government" democratic.
A lack of universally accepted definition may lead to normative or evaluative consideration from a "contextual" perspective.
That way, the
following aspects may be brought under
the ambit of good governance:
a) Prevalence of the rule of law
b) Participatory democratic governance
c) Constitutional and legal recognition and enforcement of the
rights of people that are fundamental for their lives: liberty, freedom of
speech, movement, profession, faith, empowerment, and right redress.
d) Responsive, transparent, and accountable administration.
e) Fixing responsibility, transparency, and accountability within
public personnel in the public grievance, redressal, and disposal systems in
the public administration.
f) Digitalization, transparency, and time-bound decision-making.
g) An impartial and effective adjudicatory system.
h) Strengthening the administrative and judicial review mechanisms.
i) Open, transparent access to public services in health, education, recruitment,
welfare, and related areas.
j) Promote, expand, and sustain the spheres of equity,
inclusiveness, justice, and empowerment.
k) Merging multiple jurisdictions or authorities in the field of
public welfare services into a single authority system.
l) Single-window public grievance disposal system and process.
m) Enforcing affirmative action for the disadvantaged sections of
society by virtue of gender, poverty, inaccessibility, etc.
n) Promotion and recognition of multi-actor partnerships in governance mechanisms in the development field beyond the government or public sector.
3. Maximal Governance and
Minimal Government
The principle is that government is for governance and not to
run businesses.
The aim is to strengthen trust-based
governance, ease of living, ease of doing business,
and the spirit of cooperative federalism between the Union and the states.
Less legislation and more compliance To make the government a catalyst for the ease of doing business, the Union Government repealed over 1500 Union laws and reduced 25,000 compliances.
Maximal governance entails going above and beyond good
governance to create governance from:
a.
complex to simple.
b.
From complicated to
transparent
c.
from difficulty in doing
business to ease in doing business.
d.
the conversion of multiple
windows for application clearance and disposal to a single window (Parivesh—a
single-window portal for all green clearances launched in 2018)
e. multiple pieces of legislation into a single piece of legislation for compliance mechanisms.
The ease of doing business will
be guided by:
a. The active
involvement of states
b. The digitization
of manual processes, the integration of central and state-level systems through
IT bridges,
c. Single-point
access for all citizen-centric services and standardisation and removal of overlapping
compliance requirements
d. To assess
ground-level impact, suggestions must be crowdsourced with the active
participation of citizens and businesses.
e. Establishment of
the Center for Processing Accelerated Corporate Exit (C-PACE) to facilitate the
voluntary exit of companies in less than six months An end-to-end
f.
E-Bill system, end-to-end, to reduce delays in payments.
g. One country, one registration to make ease of living and ease of doing business.
Besides, maximal governance should strive for:
a. zero tolerance
for corruption and red tape.
b. time-bound
decision.
c. Transparent
Process Control.
d. transparent
procurement policy and implementation
e. guarantee the
undertaking and certification of any public project and procurement.
f.
ensuring product and process quality standards.
g. delegation of
authority and decision-making.
h. fixing responsibility and accountability.
4.
Remarks
The issue related to maximal
governance and minimal government can be reflected upon by delineating and
identifying the limitations and opportunities of going solo in maximal governance and minimal government.
Within the broad parameters of limitations and opportunities, the first step
would be a multipronged approach through multiple actors' partnerships. he importance of recognizing knowledge, resource base, and policy
implementation as part of the multi-actor governance process.
Actors
in Governance
State
actors: state agencies (legislature,
executive, and judiciary) and various state institutional networks, beginning
at the local government system (Panchayats and municipalities), moving through
state government and agencies, and finally to the Union Government and its
agencies.
Non-government actors: civil society organizations (NGOs, trade unions, cooperatives, and
associations).
Intergovernmental
international organizations: such as the World Bank, IMF, and UN system, as well
as its specialized agencies such as ILO, WHO, and UNICEF
Inter-nongovernment international finance, business, and civil society organizations, MNCs, Oxfam, SOS Children’s Village, Lutheran World Relief, Green Peace, etc.
These actors bring considerable expertise and experience on policy and planning, monitoring, evaluation, and implementation.
-Asutosh
Satpathy
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