The Hindu Business Line : Making TN No.1

THE Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms Jayalalithaa, is for making Tamil Nadu the foremost State in the nation. This is a laudable ambition and given her determination to get things done, it might as well come to pass.

Despite facing several problems and constraints, it occupies the second rank in maintenance of law and order and comes third in domestic product, as per an evaluation undertaken by India Today some months ago.

The same study puts it in the third position in agriculture, fifth in education, sixth in infrastructure, seventh in health and prosperity, ninth in investment scenario (but described as the fastest mover in the 1990s), and tenth in consumer markets. In the overall, it is ranked as the sixth among the States in India. The Government and the people of Tamil Nadu have to pull up their socks to overtake the States above them and emerge as Number One.

The man in the street, however, has no patience with the matrices and methodologies of scientific ranking. He judges governance by what is happening right under his nose and in his immediate vicinity, rather than with reference to complex parameters of only remote relevance to his daily hassles.

Is the governance SMART, that is, sensitive, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent? If the answer in his mind to this question of paramount importance to him is depressing, no amount of brandishing figures in other respects would ever convince him to the contrary. For, he goes by his instinct and impression on the one hand and quotidian experience on the other. For him, what counts is quality, and not quantity.

Looked at from his standpoint, the State probably ranks low as regards the citizen-public authority interface. The first shock is the pervasiveness of corruption. Every service has a price tag. Those who watched the movie Indian some years ago would perhaps testify to a multi-fold deterioration in the period since.

On a broad appraisal of civic services and amenities in the State capital, Chennai seems to lag behind Hyderabad and Bangalore. The Chief Ministers of those States, modelling themselves on corporate chief executives, personally direct, supervise and monitor the working of the various departments almost on a daily basis.

The Sultan of Muscat carries out surprise inspection in person, with the result the public agencies are on their toes all the time, and the citizens get prompt and efficient service.

Singapore is another example of stringent enforcement of norms of productivity for employees, rights of citizens and duties of public servants. Only by making every institution Number One can Tamil Nadu too become Number One.

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