New public Management: Improving Governments role

Introduction
NPM is a new paradigm in public administration. Post-independence India has relied on public sector for infrastructure development. With the adoption of welfarist scheme state came into play a dominant role in public administration. Public sector has its own problems like red tape, delays, cost and time overruns. Also the state became pampered child and developed monopolistic attitude. Wastage, hierarchy all these factors started plaguing public sector with public sector continuously looking for solutions. Finally all these factors lead to growing dissatisfaction, new sets of aspirations of people and pressure from masses for inclusivity in governance. NPM emphasizes on market oriented, customer oriented, mission specific, goal oriented, risk taking entrepreneurial public administration. NPM also built upon neo-liberal approaches. In India NPM got boost with the 5th pay finance commission and 1991 industrial policy resolution.

Some Key Questions

I feel that there are several questions about NPM which looms unanswered, some of them are: how is NPM approach different from the approaches that we had in public administration? Is this paradigm going to stay or are we moving towards other paradigms? Are they really new or just built upon previous models of public administration? What are the factors that lead to NPM in developing countries? How to know that people are satisfied with the services provided by government?

Key Facts about NPM

Adopting NPM was also more of a global compassion rather than national necessity as it was implemented in India as a result of IMF and WB asking India for such reforms. Right from scientific management, Taylorism, human relations approach, behavioral approach, systems approach the features of this epistemology have been guarded by the scenario in which they were created. The context has always overshadowed content. Productivity was key word emphasized by NPM. Britain, USA and new Zeal have already experimented with NPM. It can be noticed that the countries which have experimented with this new paradigm are mostly rich, with citizens literate and aware. They also boast of excellent infrastructure. These countries already have necessary paraphernalia to go about this new paradigm. But when we talk about developing countries like India we have to analyze weather this kind of approach be successful or not because India is still poor, semiliterate and dont have good infrastructure for this kind of privatization.

Some concerns with NPM

My concern with NPM is that NPM does not go into the periphery of the system that is the grassroots changes. NPM talks about the core, the organisation, the structural changes, I have my doubts how NPM will reconcile the consumer interests with citizen rights because both are 2 different things. I feel that we already have decentralization at some levels in form of PIL, Lok adalats, jan adalats, jan sunwai. I feel that NPM replaces one form of bureaucracy with another form because even private sector is not devoid of bureaucracy. The 3 Es i.e. Efficiency, economy and effectiveness which NPM talks about

even the older administrative models also talked about them the only difference I feel is NPM just lays more emphasis on it. Its vocabulary is very conspicuous and just strikes a chord with whosoever is talking about NPM. The greatest paradox of NPM is first of all it criticizes the government one hand for being so wasteful, hierarchical and not delivering the services for so long on the other hand it expects the same government to perform this enabling role in a more complex market set up. It now expects the government to deal with demands of the citizen, the clients with under the new system of markets, contracts, outsourcing, competitive bidding and benchmarking Role of state should change. NPM in a way has brought private sector and civil societies. State should find a way to help poor and helpless by doing away with license raj, Quota Raj, permit raj which has rather impeded the progress. State should establish a synergy between government and private players as well as government sector and civil society organizations.

Final thoughts
Recently I read this beautiful quote by Tom Allen which elegantly conveys my perception for a need of new public management (NPM). It goes like Yet, much of what lies beneath the ocean's surface remains a mystery, and our nation continues to rely on a confused, antiquated system of ocean governance. We have seen what is NPM, how responsive it is, how accountable and competitive it is. But is this beautifully constructed paradigm can be adopted in India? It needs to be analyzed. NPM is just a reform model its a philosophy for good governance. NPM lays emphasis on flexibility in

terms of accepting the best ones to provide services. NPM doesnt advocates complete privatization, its aim is to eliminate the inefficiencies in public sector and procure the services from the best ones through outsourcing, competition, responsiveness and accountability. It also aims at decentralization and diffusion of agencies for the empowerment of people. It means giving rights to people in simple ways. Enabling the people to decide what is right for them. State should play the role of facilitator and create a conducive environment for others who are best at delivering services. Government should be risk taking and dynamic and deliver results. Focus should be shifted to electronic government. Productivity should be main concern for the government and best value for money should be the guiding principle.

References
http://indiagovernance.gov.in/files/performance-management.pdf http://books.google.co.in/books?id=cmsPD9zRtrIC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=new+pub lic+management+in+india&source=bl&ots=kOFIV4_sBd&sig=7yVliNGscpIa81T8bzfGA_iq ywo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gANzUpC1HOO90QW3zoCABg&ved=0CFoQ6AEwCDgU http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-npm-can-improve-public-admin-1374958