Indian babus are Asia’s worst
An article in today’s Times of India
Citizens who find the thought of dealing with India’s babudom a nightmarish prospect have reason to feel vindicated. The “country’s suffocating bureaucracy” has been ranked the least efficient by a business survey of 12 Asian economies, which said working with India’s civil servants was a “slow and painful” process.
The survey said Singapore’s civil servants are the most efficient among their Asian peers but tend to clam up when things go wrong. For India’s babus, the survey said: “They are a power centre in their own right at both national and state levels, and extremely resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties.” Singapore was ranked first for a third time in a poll of 1,274 expatriates working in 12 North and South Asian nations on the efficiency of bureaucrats in those countries. The poll was last held in 2007.
“During normal times, when the system is not stress-tested, it operates very well,” Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy said in a 12-page report of Singapore’s bureaucracy.
“However, during difficult times — or when mistakes are made that reflect badly on the system — there is a tendency among bureaucrats to circle the wagons in ways that lack transparency and make accountability difficult,” the report said. The survey ranked Hong Kong second. Thailand, despite four years of street protests and a year of dysfunctional government, was ranked third. China, which has been campaigning to fight corruption and improve efficiency in the civil service, was ranked 9th in 2009, two places down from 2007.
The 12 economies, in order of ranking were: Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, S Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, Indonesia and India. AGENCIES