Lethargy in Decision Making: Why Indian bureaucrats don’t take decisions?

Background

Technorati Tags: decision making,public administration,bureaucrats
Given all the 2G, CWG, Adharsh scams, investigations and arrests, the bureaucrats have become quite cautious about Decision Making, and in many cases, they don’t take decision at all, don’t move the files, fearing repercussion in future either by media or by CAG.
But Decision Making = an important topic for Public Administration syllabus. So one should be prepared to face this question either in pub.ad or in interview.
Here is some fodder material / food for thought you can use for both Paper I and II.

What is the problem?

decision-making systems in the bureaucracy, at all levels, have become slow and inefficient.
It is a commonly held belief that even “good” decision-makers are no longer willing to take risks and that the passing of the buck and abdication of responsibility are reasons for the poor quality of decision-making.

What are the factors responsible for lethargy in decision-making?

Risk : of adversely affecting one’s career advancement.
inadequate knowledge of the matter- particularly of the techno-economic-social-environmental interfaces.
lack of clarity of the time frame: whether short term medium term or long term
the possibility of crossfire in a corporate warfare situation
simultaneous media coverage hindering decision-making processes
the interface of Parliament and the courts or audit in relation to accountability incidentally impinging on decision-making in an unconnected matter
decision-maker is already immersed in a risk-averse environment, where even normal decision-making is often subject to prolonged, repeated or intense scrutiny, sometimes by people with inadequate knowledge of the relevant domain.
where analytical tools are used unpredictably (for instance, legal instead of economic, or social instead of environmental)

Recent cases related to the allocation of natural resources, mining, defence acquisition, among others, can be analysed from this perspective.

How to fix the lethargy in Decision Making?

By creating more transparency in the system and disclosure from those in the higher echelons of decision-making
By developing and using systems and institutions to generate, manage and analyse techno-economic data;
By fostering an informed stakeholder community of experts, media, civil society organisations, industry or sector associations.
Encourage independent and semi-independent advisory bodies, techno-economic think-tanks, policy research institutions, sector regulatory bodies that can provide consultancies to departments, parliamentary committees, courts and civil society organisations.
Create internal institutional units in technical and regulatory organisations for better evidence-based policy analysis.
Have a stronger emphasis on creating competent hr. This has multiple implications in terms of the quality of recruitment, sufficiency of tenures, promotion of specialisation and facilitation of multidisciplinary expertise, among others.
Have stronger engagement with parliamentary committees, including robust mechanisms to enable their secretariats to easily access technical and techno-economic analysis and advice.
Encourage serving and retired senior policy-makers and technocrats to appear or write in the media, explaining or analysing public policy.
Develop enterprise-level communication strategies as against programme-level strategies as at present, with professional inputs on an ongoing basis, so that the optimality of decisions can be seen in relation to outcomes and time horizons and as per the vision and strategy of the organisation or the department as a whole.
In high-risk situations, high rewards (recognition, advancement, etc) are required not to encourage people to unnecessarily take risks, but to attract people who have the skills, experience and expertise to be able to mitigate risks.