Ethical & Moral Values in Governance

Answer:
The values and ethics of administrators are given a lot of emphasis by the society as they wield extensive power to formulate policies, implement schemes, supervise funds and maintain law and order.
The power, which administrators wield can bring the nation great dividends if rightly used:

• Access to basic necessities to citizens: With resources and networks at their disposal, the administrators are able to transform the lives of citizens with respect to accessibility to basic necessities. For example, Santha Sheela Nair saved Chennai city from water crisis in the early 2000s, as she was the brain behind making rainwater harvesting compulsory.
• Empowering the downtrodden sections of society: Due to the initiatives of administrators, various sections of the society are guided towards progress. For example, Kudumbashree project headed by Aruna Sundararajan is a shining example of women’s empowerment.
• Adoption of new technologies: The administrators have played a key role in the adoption of e-governance in the country, which has provided various government services at the click of a button thereby reducing manpower wastage and easing lives of the common man.
• Preventing illegal and unlawful activities: Brave fight of Durga Shakti Nagpal against sand mafia, exposure of the JBT recruitment scam by Rajni Sekhri Sibal withstanding the pressure from the government, etc. reflect the power of administrators in preventing unlawful activities in society.
• Act as role model to the youth: They are the change makers who inspire the youth of the nation to aim higher and turn their lives around. For example, Krishna Gopal Tiwari, India’s first visually challenged Collector has been a motivation to thousands of people.

At the same time, abuse of the power can bring harm and disrepute in the following ways:

• Corruption: Since administrators are at the helm of projects and initiatives, they at times, abuse their power and induce corruption in the system. For example, recovery of unaccounted wealth worth crores of rupees by ED from Jharkhand’s IAS officer, Pooja Singh.
• Hinders development: Abuse of power leads to bureaucratic culture and hampers the reputation of the country with respect to ease of doing business as well as investments in the developmental projects of the nation.
• Security risks: The rampant abuse of power for personal greed by bureaucrats overlooks security concerns and prioritizes personal gains over national risks. For example, payment of bribes to Indian Air Force officers, Ministry of Defence officials, bureaucrats and politicians in the AgustaWestland deal.
• Other issues: It also raises issues such as creeping of criminal elements in politics, monopolization by certain capitalists, increasing inequalities, diversion of focus from reforms, violating various rights of citizens, etc.

Although abuse of power can be reduced by improving transparency through computerisation of the governmental operations and displaying of records on websites, at the end of the day, the key to the problem is the underlying ethics and moral values of the administrators. Without ethical rooting, it is difficult to prevent abuse of power.