PSC’s Golden Jubilee
The Role Of PSC In Good Governance

By Dr. Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

PUBLIC Service Commission of Nepal is an autonomous institution. The necessities and significance of the Public Service Commission was first felt following the establishment of democratic Government in February, 1951.It was entrusted with the task of conducting examination for recruitment to Government posts. Since it’s establishment, it has preserved and maintained the position and respect and people still have good trust and faith in its fairness. Organizational psychologists and personnel experts have confirmed that effective manpower selection everlastingly insists and helps to impart good governance to the general people.

Three Procedures

The PSC of Nepal is always supporting the government by supplying efficient manpower on the bases of sound recruitment and selection process. In the process of selection system, it normally carries out three procedures i.e. open competition, internal competition, and promotion. In all these processes, the PSC is always following the doctrine of merit system. Without doubt, merit-based selection imparts and contributes in delivering effective services to the common people. In real sense, effective selection process helps the newly recruited personnel in the course of imparting good and efficient services.

Public Service Commission and good governance are related subjects in the context of delivering effective services to the general people. His Majesty’s Government has for the first time announced through a strategy announcement in the Ninth Plan to formulate good governance. Governance is obviously identified with the aspiration level of the society and it is not static in meaning. In this context of governance, of Al Gore’s National Performance Review (1993) prefers the term "democratic governance" to good governance and its distinguishing attributes lie in certain "values" such as equal opportunity, justice, diversity and democracy.

Personnel management experts emphasize that a civil society must prevent itself from getting accustomed to poor governance. The major barriers to good governance are the bloated size of the career bureaucracy, lower productivity, poor accountability, transparency and integrity. It is said that governance can be seen as the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage country’s affairs at all levels. It comprises the mechanism, process and institutions, through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences.

Nepalese management experts emphasise that good governance without good bureaucracy will remain a myth; therefore, a system be enforced to revamp the bureaucracy without further delay. To meet this good sprit, the PSC has introduced scientific curriculum aiming to supply best, capable and efficient manpower to the government for fulfilling the purposes of delivering good services. It is proved that effective curriculum always produces best and talented manpower from the society.

For good governance, PSC has been introducing new curriculum designs for selecting effective manpower. In the latest curriculum formulation, the Public Service Commission has introduced open, competitive syllabus for all Gazetted Third Class, Section Officers (non technical) on October 18,2001. This curriculum is formulated after comprehensive exercises, workshop seminars in different regions of the country, interaction with government officials and public administration experts and imparting facts and figures about the necessities of changing previous syllabus through radios and television channels. Particularly, the present curriculum is designed on the basis of the accumulation of detailed job descriptions of the various services like Administrative, Judiciary, Parliamentary and Auditing services.

Human resource mobilization is the thread that ties together all human resource practices which helps to impart effective services. This type of effective management raises hope and aspiration about good governance.

The Word Bank (1997) highlights that merit-based selection is associated with bureaucratic capability in public agencies that provides further support. Management expert, Willy MCCourt, (1998), Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, stresses that Public Service Commission has an almost totemic significance as a body, which successfully resists nepotistic pressures which, are rampant elsewhere. He further adds that Nepal’s PSC is in the "Cinderella" status among the agencies of government, probably a reflection of the universal lack of glamour of the public recruitment function. Yet, the growing interest in anti-corruption strategies and in the quality of public management, and the World’s Bank’s recent finding of a link between recruitment and the absence of corruption on the one hand and the efficiency of administration on the other suggests that recruitment is a more important factor in the quality of governance.

Nepalese personnel management experts highlight that the country’s bureaucracy has always been badly affected by favoritism, nepotism and massive politicization. In this regard, concrete government policy for honing the skills of civil servants is indispensable. The Nepali bureaucracy has suffered because the government lacks policies that encourage civil servants to become more competent and innovative. Lack of accountability and dynamism in work have been serious drawbacks of our administrative mechanism.

Basically, to secure an efficient civil service it is essential to protect it from political and personal influences. In countries where this principle has been neglected, and the spoils system has taken its place, an inefficient and disorganized civil service has been the inevitable result and corruption has been rampant (Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, quoted in Chowdhury, 1985:27.

Work Jointly

Finally, the new curriculum of PSC will be very valuable in supplying efficient and capable manpower to the government. The new recruited personnel must be able to tackle the situation as well as be capable in delivering effective services and the general people should get the feelings and aspiration of The same. Personnel management experts have stated that effective curriculum design is one basic factor of personnel recruitment and selection. For imparting good governance the Public Service Commission, the National Planning Commission and the Ministry of General Administration must work jointly.

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