Why our democracy is not a great success?

India, the largest democracy of the world, with over 69 million of registered voters and a population of over 111 crores. If we look at the no of people in this country from some developed country’s point of view, it is an amazing number. We have a huge cultural, geographical and natural diversity. We are one of the country with highest no of spoken languages. And of top of all these, one of the most laziest bureaucracy in the world.

To count our other achievements, with second highest population we hardly manage to get few medals in Olympics! A lot of our great researchers need to go to other countries to pursue their research. Many of the students have to go to foreign university in search of quality education. In terms of implementation of technology, we are atleast half a decade behind any developed country, it is when Indian are considered to be talented.

Why all this? Is it that for us only quantity dominates? In any field we dominate, whether it be cricket or anything else, it is basically due to quantity of people. Where in any developed country, the output per person is far beyond than that is ours. Some could be contributed to their advancement in technology, but upto a large extent there are some fundamental faults in the system which we are ignoring. It could be said that some people are lazy, but not everyone is lazy.

One of the fundamental drawback I feel is that, technological and medical related departments are being headed by bureaucrats instead of technocrats and doctors. In govt everything is worked controlled by bureaucrats ( like IAS or people from other administrative services), whether it be a technological department, medical department or any other public sector enterprise ignoring whichever field they might concern.

How can we expect a bureaucrat to understand and allocate resources better than a engineer in any engineering projects. Alas, this is the way we have in our country. Health ministry is controlled by more bureaucrats than doctors, so no wonder our life expectancy is less and our health standards are low as compared to other countries.

An example how engineer when head a engineering department instead of bureaucrat can work wonders is Delhi Metro. One of the most successful enterprise in our country and a technological marvel of our country.

Why don’t we look at country like America in terms of management and technology, when we can follow them in other stupid terms. In USA, each department is headed by a specialist of that field. President’s team like that of Obama’s include excellent managers, lawyers(himself), doctors, engineers and many others. Each government department is headed by a specialist of that field. And we can see the result of their growth. Today, dollar is the standard currency in international market. Everyday in newspapers, don’t we see rupee and other currency as compared to dollar or prices of commodity in international market in terms of dollar. Could economic recession starting from any other country could have affected whole world so badly?

Coming back to our country, how do we manage one of the wealthiest sports club of the world? Yes, BCCI which is among the richest sports club needs no mention of bureaucracy. Wouldn’t things be much better if it would have been headed by a cricketer (could be a retired one). And decisions would be taken in more favor of players/cricket instead of self interest.

Bureaucrats are no doubt needed but not at the topmost level in all organizations. The process of selection of some bureaucrats like IAS do deserve respect. But govt department should be controlled by a person of that field, who can be assisted by a bureaucrat if needed. This would increase the efficiency and boost the performance. Results will be better than they are now.

Then why do we give every power position to a bureaucrat? The answer is simple. Because of political power and greed of some people. No doubt, it would not be favor of the politicians and many other. If we make some fundamental changes like these then chances are more that we can fight corruption better and can land in the list of those developed countries faster and most important of all will have a better life to live. Then how would these people will continue to earn. They are more used to free bread than working.