Do We Require so many Political Representatives at Tax Payers' Cost?

 

 The companies these days strive hard to lower the costs and improve the quality of their products and services in order to attract their customers. This happens because there is competition in the market and as a result, the companies, in order to serve the customer better and keep the costs down they adopt variety of methods and strategies; minimising inventory, innovating various manufacturing strategies; make to order, assemble to order, lean manufacturing, using six sigma tools for process improvement and quality control etc. The retail companies are calculating revenue earned on the basis of per sqft of area and so utilise every inch of the show room.

Consequently, the companies that were managed by thousands of employees are now serving the customer better with almost half the staff.

The innovative use of technology has enabled the companies to achieve all this not only to manage just one factory or one office but hundreds of offices spread over the country and even globe.

Ironically, when these companies are changing and looking to improve things on daily basis, our Govt and the politicians who run the Govt are working on - More the Merrier concept.

Colossal Machinery.

To Govern the country, they have recruited huge number of employees. Central Govt has approx. 30 lac employees and State Govts(28 states) have approx a crore employees and on top of them there are politicians ; 4000 MLAs, 552 MPs in Lok Sabha, 250 in Rajya Sabha and lacs of Parshads and Sarpanchs, who have No yearly Goals to achieve and No accountability.

If we leave aside the Govt employees as they provide continuity to the administrative system its perplexing as to why we have shied away from asking following;

What are they (Politicians) supposed to be doing?

What are their deliverables?

Are they really delivering what is being expected from them?

Do we really require so many of these politicians as our representatives in these modern times, when companies are using various management tools to keep their costs down.

What hurts the most is that all these Politicians are being paid heavily, most of them are Crore patis and many of them are criminals / anti-social elements and have risen to this height surely not because of their competence.

MLA/ MP; WHAT DO THEY DO ?

There are 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, each constituency has One Member of Parliament, 7-9 MLAs, hundreds of Parshads, Mayors of cities that are part of the constituency. For a layman it basically means that each Lok Sabha constituency is divided into 7-9 MLA constituencies which further have Municipal bodies for managing urban areas, and are divided into Wards represented by Parshads. Thereafter, a Lok Sabha constituency also has thousands of permanent employees in terms of; Collectors, Commissioner, additional collectors, assistant commissioners, tehsildars, block development officers, Police officials and hundreds of engineers, doctors, teachers to maintain law and order, manage infrastructure, manage hospitals, manage schools, etc of that one Lok Sabha constituency.

The Govt employee provides continuity in administration and are selected through various competitive exams, whereas, a Member of Lok Sabha (MP), Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and Parshads of Municipal Wards are people’s representative, elected by the voters of a constituency. This implies that the voters of a Lok Sabha constituency numbering approx. 15 to 30 lacs citizens have almost 70- 80 politicians (MP, MLAs, Parshads, Mayors) as their representatives. For instance, Indore with a population of approx. 30 lacs has One(01) Member of Parliament, Nine(9) MLAs and Sixty Nine (69) Parshads.

The Municipal Corporations comprising of 60 odd Parshads are responsible for almost everything that happens in a city; land use, town planning, social development, fire services, slum improvement, street lights, provision of urban amenities like gardens, parks, play grounds etc.

However, the irony is despite having 80 politicians representing us, the common man has to still run around for redressal of grievances and he finds his cities in mess, has to dig borewells and hire water tankers to get water, has to get an inverter for 24x7 electricity supply, has to send his kids to private schools and take his sick to private hospitals, because all these politicians and employees put together can not manage anything ; neither schools, nor hospitals, nor electricity boards, nor PWDs …..

 

In addition to above, law making which is the most important function of the legislature i.e MPs/MLAs, we have politicians who hardly have any idea of it and seldom seen to be discussing these issues seriously. Most of the times during question hour, zero hour, when serious issues related to law and order, Police reforms, irrigation, agriculture, local governments, public health, etc on which they are supposed to make rules, being discussed we find the parliament and assembly vacant. This clearly indicates that MLAs and MPs do not even take their primary function seriously.                            

What is most hurting?

Now despite not delivering and having no accountability the MLAs in India earn approx. a Lac per month and Govt spends approx. 2.5 lac per month on each MP. This implies that country is spending 40,00, 00,00 per month on MLAs and 2,40,60,000 per month on its MPs and all this amount is being paid from tax payers’ money.

The perks do not end here; they earn pension as well and get subsidised lunches at canteens in Lok Sabha, and we should not forget that behind these 80 elected politicians in a constituency there are thousands of politicians and Irony is that all these thousands of politicians are being paid from our pockets and we are told that if we do not vote our democracy will be in danger and we must use our right.

In addition to this, they have numerous opportunities to earn money over and above their salary. If one notices their income declarations during elections, one would wonder as to how their income has multiplied 4-5 times in a span of one tenure as MP/MLA.

Questions that Need to be asked?

Yes, we need to exercise our democratic rights and need to elect our representatives who can exercise control over the executive, but we need to ask following ;

Do we really need so many of them after all Numbers/ Quantity do not lead to Efficiency and Effectiveness ?

Should the Govt not take a cue from the Big Companies and start using technology and innovative methods to reduce the number of Political representatives and thereby reduce the cost?

My suggestion, therefore is; Have few well paid competent representatives who are responsible towards their voters and are held accountable for the lapses done by executive.

The entire system of governance needs to become effective and for that these politicians managing the system need to understand the difference between EFFICIENCY and EFFECTIVENESS.

Just to remind what few learned people had said about Productivity, Efficiency and Effectiveness;

“Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.”

“Waste is antithetical to efficiency. You cannot have one while also having the other. In maximizing one, the other will definitely be minimized. In minimizing one, the other will definitely be maximized.”

“It’s important to have an efficient business. But it’s also just as important to have an effective business. Efficiency and effectiveness should be an inseparable pair.”

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Our journey as a modern nation statestarted in 1947 with the historic speech byPandit Jawaharlal Nehru, with 95% illiteracy, barely any industry and transport system, armed forces that were divided due to partition lacking equipment was largely in disarray, if there were guns- then the dial sights were taken away by Pakistanis, making the guns ineffective, if there were files- maps were taken way by Pakistanis, if there were battalions, half the men had gone away to Pakistan and so on.


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