AS the district magistrate of Nalanda walks to his office in Biharsharif from his adjacent residential quarters, a posse of policemen salutes their ‘hakim’ (as the DM is known in north India) with a sharp click of their boots. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, the 33-year-old district magistrate, is perhaps too used to this morning ritual to even notice it.

Nalanda conjures up many images of Bihar. In ancient India, it was the world’s most prestigious seat of learning. In modern India, it has degenerated into a crime hub and hotbed of social tensions resulting in the proliferation of private armies and the radical left. It has also seen repeated bouts of communal riots. But of late, it is getting identified with the benign face of good governance. Chief minister Nitish Kumar hails from this district and is trying to rid Nalanda (and of course all of Bihar) of its image of notoriety and decline.

As a young bureaucrat, Agarwal cannot be unaware of the challenges that come with being one of the most important cogs in the wheel of Nitish Kumar’s development dream. Within the district, all government offices and officers look upon the DM as the ultimate arbiter of their destiny. The DM is responsible for every plan, every project, every appointment small and big, every complaint, all budgets and all permissions—in fact, just about everything in the district save the changing of the seasons and the rising and setting of the sun and the moon (God must have some work, you see)!

Thus, across the country and more so in Bihar, where feudal remnants are still very strong, DMs are the archetypal representative of the ‘mai-bap’ government. It is an anachronism too glaring to be ignored in a democratic setup.

Thankfully, Nitish Kumar chose not to ignore it. When one person is vested with so much power and so many things to do, often very little gets done because the one thing DMs cannot get enough of is time. It is beyond the powers of any GO (government order) to squeeze more than 24 hours into the day. In other words, that person becomes the biggest bottleneck to administrative action. This is true for DMs across the country. They are expected to do so much that nothing gets done, at least nothing gets done in time. If this glaring administrative gangrene has been in public space for decades so was its solution: a simple surgery to unburden the DM and sharpen the focus of her functions. But nobody had the gumption to take the surgeon’s scalpel to remove the dead tissue. Not until September 19 of this year when Nitish Kumar, with one felt swoop of a GO, the government’s equivalent of a surgeon’s knife, took the risk of curative measures. Through that GO the Bihar government decreed that each department would be accountable for implementing its own development schemes. It gave the department heads the power to allocate funds and thus decentralised power and redefined the role of the DMs (see box). Now the DMs in Bihar will act as the representative of the state government, mentoring, monitoring and ensuring the overall plan of the state is on track. That was, indeed, the traditional role of DM as envisaged in our administrtive structure before all kinds of distortions set in.

On entering Agarwal’s office, the first thing that strikes me is the lack of clutter on his desk. Just a few files, perhaps the first indication of the changing role. As Agarwal takes his seat behind the large teak wood table and glances at the neatly-typed day’s agenda, the second change becomes apparent: a string of review meetings are lined up for him with very little involvement in the nitty-gritty of projects, plans and clearances.
10 am: MGNREGS workshop.
1  pm: Revenue meeting.
2  pm: Health review meeting
3  pm: Review meeting of the Right to Public Services Act with IT managers
4  pm: Back to the MGNREGS workshop.

Agarwal is quite happy with the prospect of being relieved of the burden of schemes and programmes which have nothing to do with his duties and would keep him tied to his seat in office with little mobility. He is so comfortable in his new role as the eyes and ears of the state government that he is already worried about the upcoming recruitment drive for 10,000 home guards, a duty he carries forward from the pre-September 19 era when he was supposed to do everything from hiring a carpenter to endorsing the quality of construction of a bridge. “This (recruitment drive) will consume ten of my working days during which I will be able to do nothing else,” he complains. 

But today, all the items on the agenda require him to play a combination of mentoring, monitoring and supervisory roles. With no routine files to clear, the DM is pleased that he can fully concentrate on the job at hand. Now he does not have to waste his time over sanctioning the release of '1 lakh to a panchayat or selection of contractors for repair jobs at the circuit house. Later in the evening, after he is done with his day’s assignments, he plans to review Gyan-Dhara, a programme he launched only last month for the education department for motivating the teachers in his district. The next few days in his calendar are marked for field visits to the three sub-divisions in the district to take a look at PDS shops and MGNREGS works.  
Life as DM was never so focused and goal-oriented for Agarwal who has served three years as the administrative head of the district. Only a month and a half ago, his daily routine entailed meetings, meetings and more meetings; most of them to clear routine administrative matters. 

As head of 50 departments, Agarwal on any regular day ‘cleared’ at least 100 files. While the review of various programmes and schemes being implemented in his district took most of his working hours, his off-duty hours, from 6 pm to 10 pm, were consumed in clearing routine administrative files.
But today it is different—it has been so since September 19: he quickly browses the three files pertaining to his core functions as revenue, law and order and communal harmony, signs them and is ready to leave his office in minutes (whereas earlier he would be at his desk through the day, signing files and holding meetings.)

“My district has been number one in health and education. I need to maintain that ranking and pull up other departments that are lagging behind,” he says, as he enters the Ambassador car with a flashing red beacon to drive to the venue of the MGNREGS workshop.

Photo by Brajesh Kumar

Nalanda district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agarwal interacts with other district officials at his office

What the move means to a DM
“It’s a welcome step for the district and the state,” says Agarwal, as his car negotiates the winding alleys of Biharsharif. “Since every file had to move through the office of the DM with his signature, the officials below him refused to take any responsibility even if the work was done under their supervision. What this order has done is that it has fixed responsibilities for such officials. Now since all department heads are directly responsible for the work done under their supervision with their sanction, their accountability increases. They know that their every act of omission and commission will be monitored and accounted for. This awareness will force them to do their work seriously,” Agarwal explains.

The order creates a strong second tier of hierarchy too. “Earlier, decisions which could have been easily taken at the level of the department head were not taken because the consent of the DM was required. Now since the omnipotence and omnipresence of the DM have been done away with, a strong tier-two leadership will emerge. After all, a district cannot be run by a DM alone. The magnitude of the administrative work requires teamwork and collective leadership. This order creates scope for such teamwork.”

More importantly, since the work has been distributed with no routine files coming his way, Agarwal will get ample time to supervise and monitor district works closely. “I will now utilise my time following each scheme running in my district closely and monitor its implementation. I will also be able to plan and look ahead, devising new programmes, motivating my staff, and if required, make provisions for their training,” he says. “And, yes, I will also travel extensively interacting with people of my district in order to get their say in running the district.”

A direct line with the centre
Although the much-touted decentralisation process in bureaucracy kicked off with the 73rd amendment to the constitution in the form of panchayati raj institutions, the regal position of an IAS has remained undiminished and the position of the DMs as the lord of all things they purvey has only been reinforced because of the way the implementation of Centrally-Sponsored Schemes (CSS) has evolved over the decades. As the number of CSS programmes multiplied and the centre started releasing funds directly to the DMs it added another layer of power to the DMs across the country. They had a direct line of communication with the centre and were flooded with more responsibility in terms of use of central funds, quality control, completion of projects and compliance reports. 

How Bihar DMs got busy
In Laloo-Rabri’s Bihar, however, the relationship between the DM and the centre was non-existent because administration came to a standstill. For good or for bad, the state government did not claim any money from the centre and there were hardly any schemes to be implemented at the district level. A senior IAS officer says, “In those days the schemes that we were in charge of included MPLADS, Sunishchit Rozgar Yojna and a few others.”

But as Nitish Kumar started transforming Bihar from a state with no governance to a state with good governance, he started claiming central funds. When he did that he quickly found out that not only were the DM’s hands full, but this system of administering central funds and projects left no role for the state government at all. Nitish introduced a number of developmental initiatives – for example, Mukhya Mantri Setu Nirman Yojna, Mukhya Mantri Balika Poshak Yojna and Mukhya Mantri Cycle Yojna. They all are under the DM’s direct supervision. Along with these specially targeted schemes, there are scores of centrally-sponsored schemes. The state has a total of 634 development and welfare programmes with over 2,00,000 schemes averaging 5,263 schemes for each district.

Implementing and monitoring the 5,000-odd schemes is an unenviable task by any standards. It is this excruciating burden on a DM that Nitish Kumar has now sought to remove.

Curtailing the DMs’ financial powers and instructing them to play more of a supervisory and monitoring role is symptomatic of Nitish’s reformist instincts.    
Scrapping the MLA funds, converting corrupt officials’ property into schools and now redefining the DM’s role are part of his well thought-out strategies in the second term. Some officials point out that the chief minister had such systemic reforms in mind right from the beginning. Way back in December 2005, the very first month of his first term, Nitish had warned bureaucrats that soon officials at all levels would be held accountable for their acts of commission and omission.

The larger implication of what he said became evident in his second term when in January 2011, he told a gathering of the DMs that he wanted them to be the main representative of the government before people. He said people’s mandate must be respected and more efforts should be made for good governance than before. He asked the DMs to play only ‘a regulatory and supervisory role with focus on law and order, social and communal harmony and end of corruption’. The then cabinet secretary, Afzal Amanullah, who was also present in the meeting, says, “Originally, the DMs’ role was conceived to be that of supervision but they have been burdened with other miscellaneous functions. Practically all the decisions, including selection of contractors and builders for development works, are being taken by DMs. Now they are not supposed to pass schemes, make estimates and sign cheques.”

The new, improved DM
Meanwhile, it is 4 pm and Agarwal is still at the MGNREGS workshop, running behind schedule by two hours. But this is important. The employment guarantee scheme has not been faring well all over the state, including in Nalanda, and the DM is concerned. “I have called this workshop to instill a sense of discipline among what I call the foot soldiers, who are implementing the scheme on the ground,” he tells me. The value that these “foot soldiers” will get out of this direct interaction with the DM can only be positive and felt down administrative chain in the long run so Agarwal is happy to stay well beyond scheduled time. In his earlier avatar he would have typically given the opening remarks and scooted to his next item on the agenda.

Some DMs are, of course, not happy in their new role because they see it as clipping of their wings rather than giving them freedom to fly. Earlier the DM planned, awarded and implemented the project. The same DM also monitored it. “Tell me how can anyone monitor his own work? This order separates the role of the implementer from that of the regulator or supervisor,” says an officer. Agarwal agrees. “Though the department heads have been empowered to sanction funds for schemes of their own departments, the overall supervisory and monitory role lies with the DM. Along with the department heads, a DM will be equally responsible if anything goes wrong.”

It is well after 4 pm now. Agarwal’s OSD Vikash Kumar is looking constantly at his watch and finally decides to alert his boss about the other scheduled meetings. Agarwal reaches his office for the revenue meeting 3 hours behind schedule and wraps up his day at 8.30 pm. Eleven hours in the work day of a DM is definitely not enough to gauge if this is the revolution in administrative reforms that the country is desperately waiting for. But when you see a DM signing only three files in an entire work day (today’s count is particularly low, the average these days is 20 files against 100 files before the GO), you know something is changing. Some good is round the corner.

This article first appeared in the November 15-30 issue of the Governance Now magazine (Vol.2, Issue20).