Bureaucracy
Improving Efficiency

By Dr.Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

BUREAUCRACY is an administrative structure, staffed by a professional body of officials. In theory, it involves a carefully defined division of tasks, following formally defined rules and procedures. The organisation is a disciplined hierarchy, in which officials are subject to the a ModeModern administrative systems like the civil service, are based on the bureaucratic model. One of the problems of bureaucracy is an inherent tension between uniformity, which is convenient for large-scale administration, and flexibility, which is necessary in dealing with individual cases. In practice, bureaucracies are sometimes deficient, revealing tendencies to excessive rigidity, delay, and unresponsiveness (the popular image of 'red tape'); or else to waste, corruption, and abuse of power. In some countries, the public may have redress against bureaucratic maladministration through administrative law and recourse to an ombudsman.

The bureaucracy is characterised by highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialisation, very formalised rules and regulations, tasks that are grouped into functional departments, centralised authority, narrow spans of control, and decision-making that follows the chain of command. Furthermore, bureaucratic mechanism must be founded on merit and must remain free from political patronage and must be driven by a sense of justice, fair play and efficiency. The Word Bank (1997b) highlights that merit-based selection is associated with bureaucratic capability in public agencies that provides further support.Bureaucracy is a professional corps of officials organised in a pyramidal hierarchy and functioning under impersonal, uniform rules and procedures. In this context, Nepalese personnel management researchers highlight the foremost and challenging functions of Nepalese bureaucrats. They categorise bureaucrat's functions into three groups; functions which need not be performed by the government and can be conveniently relinquished in favour of agencies other than the government; functions which should be performed under the present management structure and system; functions which can be performed under the present management structure but in an improved manner.In the context of Nepalese bureaucracy, there is lack of open communication between the top-level executives and middle level managers. Consequently, Nepalese bureaucracy faces diversified challenges i.e. decision-making, problems in corruption free environment, lack of honesty, inability to manage conflict, agreement with donor agencies, program formulation, lack of negotiation capability in seminar and trade and treaty agreement. At the same time, in day-to-day official proceedings, there is also lack of teamwork, participation and computer-based information systems. Generally, there are some officers who usually say top-level officers make policies; they should not offer their sincere opinions until called for.

Making decisions is a routine work of every manager in bureaucracy. The quality of decision-making affects the survival of the organisation. Nepalese researchers stress that Nepalese employees are simply made to work without encouraging much to exercise their own imagination, ingenuity, creativity and so on. The managers generally avoid employees' participation in decision-making process. Most decisions are made at the top level and subordinates are simply made to follow them.

In an analytical story, a National Magazine stresses that along with a strong institutional framework, effectiveness in the decision-making process depends on the efficiency and commitment of senior officers. In many offices of Nepal, a secretary who often participates in the decision-making process delivers quick result. In other cases, senior officials maintain a dominating approach, which invariably raises endless roadblocks. The decision-making process is always tedious and lengthy.

It is agreed that unless bureaucrats are motivated to make sufficient potential to perform effectively, they may not achieve the level of performance that is desired from them. Especially, external and internal environments influence government and non-government organisations. A single organisation does not exist alone. It is part of a larger system that contains thousands of other elements
Environment influences the attitudes of people and affects working conditions. Basically, congenial environment within organisation always motivates the workers and helps to meet the targeted objectives successfully. Generally, feedback, motivation, fair competition and open discussion may create healthy environment within organisation. Also in organisation, workers find more joy in work when there is cooperation and teamwork.

Nepalese bureaucratic managers seem to be managing for survival rather than results. In the context of managerial decision-making, Nepalese managers are not much concerned about improving organisational effectiveness. It is a fact that the general people do not get prompt services from the government staff. Also they forward ready-made answer like "come tomorrow". In this situation, it is hard to build up "social status" of the Nepalese bureaucrats. Basically, the bureaucrats are less motivated and have low morale. Generally , frequent change of rule and regulation pertaining to promotion also lead to frustration and stress. Furthermore, Performance Appraisal System, transfer and placement as well as distribution of prizes to the bureaucrats should be reviewed by the government .

The incidence of corruption in public life has assumed frightening proportions. It has not only spread to every part of the government machinery, but has had a more rapid growth amongst the political leadership at all levels. Everywhere, to a greater or lesser extent, public employees are put under strain by the pressures exerted by politicians and by influential citizens, who seek special and speedy favours.EssentialSuch conditions force government employees to buckle under either the pressure or temptation and act in a manner that is contrary to established laws and regulations, or to be identified as "troublemakers" to be eased out in the near future. The unethical behavior on the part of administrators is mostly resultant product of constitutional, political, psychical, socio-economic and the administrative environment prevailing in the society.

In conclusion, principally, 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, an inefficient and disorganised civil service has been the inevitable result and corruption has been rampant.

On The Vanity Of Having Or Not Having A Shaggy Face

By Govinda Bhattarai

DOES your beard give you a matured look?

Recently, I ran into one of my close acquaintances who has grown a goatee. His wife seems to hate that portion of his face he's decided not to shave, for whatever she speaks is laden with connotations directed toward criticising it. I inquired the young man, who generally looked clean-shaven earlier, as to why he wanted to go hairy in the face. Much to my wonder, he would say that that would make him look mature, as mature enough as is required for the managerial post he holds in a multinational company. He believes that due to his mama's boy kind of appearance, his colleagues and staff undermine him despite his high calibre.

As I had observed the fluctuations in his decision on beard over the past few years, this time I advised he should keep clean. He looks better clean-shaven. Wright or wrong, I told him that the fluctuation in the face reflected the instability in the mind. Somehow, he was convinced and I felt triumphant over having been able to dissuade at least one against the bushy business.

This incident led me to some time in the past when I had just completed my Master's and was invited to teach at a private college. Fresh and young with no fat married look as I bear now (for I was not married then), I was frequently mistaken as a student. The gatekeeper would not let me in without an identity card. When I first went to the classroom, the students thought of me as a student leader who'd gone there to inform them about some programme. They were baffled to see me start teaching. All these incidents finally led me to think of an idea that would give me a teacher's look - an old or middle aged person with grey or white hair and probably with specs on the nose. Since I possessed none of these features, an idea struck in the mind: to grow beard in the face.

History and pre-history of beard would fill volumes. People grow or shave their beard for various reasons. From our mythological Munis to philosopher Marx and politician Manmohan, great men grew beard for reasons perhaps known to themselves. But it is certainly not for looking mature. Some shy away from shaving their stiff beard because it is too painful an experience to undergo frequently if not everyday. Some have allergies and some simply for the defamiliarisation of their faces. Today youngsters grow a distorted form of goatee - thin streaks running from side burns to the chin or only on the chin - as a facial fashion.

During the heyday of the Panchayat system, bearded men were thought to be rebels seeking to overthrow the regime. During the 1990 People's Movement, many of my friends and relatives, who had a great love for beard, had to flee or confine in their houses for fear of being arrested. Even during the State of Emergency, security personnel harassed one of my friends as being a Maoist activist on the ground of his beard. He almost temporarily lost consciousness and was unable to furnish answer to their queries, thereby fuelling their suspicion. After the narrow escape, the first thing he did then was to directly rush towards a nearby hairdresser's.

I think the logic behind growing or shaving one's beard is groundless. Rationalising the issue, if it is an issue at all, only complicates it. To have a beard or not to have it, it is your personal decision. To be frank, I prefer the second option but ironically, I forget to see my face in the mirror for days, if not weeks.

Biotech In Breeding

By P. Gopakumar

NEWSPAPER stories over the past few months might give the impression that the long promised new dawn of biotechnology had at least arrived. From the USA and the UK, for example, came reports of successes in cloning pigs as a major step towards producing customised organs for human surgery. Transgenic pigs with potential to reduce phosphorus excretion have been produced in Canada. Recently, Japanese researchers claimed to have injected a vegetable gene (from the spinach plant) into fertilised pig eggs, then implanted these in a sow. The resulting piglets from her had a lower content of saturated fat.

Costly

Pork producers and consumers should not be too excited about these particular cases. Cloning at present is far too costly and inconsistent to be used commercially; quite apart from the animal health concerns raised recently when premature arthritis was diagnosed in the world's first cloned sheep. The idea of producing transgenic animals for food is abhorrent to most western consumers. The reasoning behind some experiments is not clear either. For example, feeding certain fatty acids is a far simpler way to manipulate the fat in pork than through gene transfer. The feed route does not affect animal welfare and it allows greater control over fat quality.

Nonetheless, developments in those areas are pulling genomic research forward. Although the pig industry's biotechnological revolution seems to be going slow to reach the farm level, here is a rapid tour around progress in a number of the technologies shaping up to change the way in which pigs are produced.

Frozen semen has finally started to make breakthrough after years of frustration. Its potential for lowering the cost of production and distribution has long been clear. By one calculation, frozen boar semen could be produced at around Rs.400 per dose against Rs.800 per dose for fresh semen.
Some serious technical difficulties remain which preclude the utilisation of this method by most commercial units. But companies involved in pig genetics are now beginning to use it within their own programmes and to enjoy its benefits, such as where semen must be shipped long distances or quarantine is required to maintain biosecurity.

Semen sexing is undoubtedly one of the most promising biotech developments. Solely producing females on a grow-finish site would improve the uniformity of carcasses at slaughter. Output performance would also be increased, along with a considerable reduction in problems of boar taint. There could even be units concentrating entirely on the production of castrates, in order to generate a high-quality and homogenous raw material for dry-cured ham.

Unfortunately, the most widely used technique to sort bull semen by sex is not applicable for commercial pig production at this stage. Marked Assisted Selection (MAS) means selecting pigs with the most advantageous genotype by an analysis of their DNA. As the genotype already exists in the natural population, it is an extension of traditional breeding rather than genetic modification. Its acceptability is raised even more by the fact it is both totally non-invasive and welfare-friendly.
Selection for lower appetite can be beneficial. Low-appetite pigs are not only leaner (typically showing a lean meat percentage that is higher by about 1 per cent). On the other hand these effects are accompanied by slower growth and some trials have found a lower ultimate PH indicative of poorer meat quality. But such pigs can greatly increase the overall profitability of production in markets that pay for lean. What is more, selecting for lower appetite brings the unquantifiable benefit of higher homogeneity during growth and at slaughtering. Nor should we overlook the fact that this method of selection on appetite is totally acceptable to consumers from an animal welfare point of view.
Disease resistance must be high on every producer's list of wishes for the future in terms of pig genetic improvement. The good news is that considerable work is taking place in this area. There are research programmes examining pigs' genetically controlled resistance to diseases like PRRS and Salmonella. The potential is demonstrated by a marker that has already been developed in PIC' own research. It targets the genetic ability to resist a specific type of E.Coli responsible for some diarrhea and oedima after weaning. To produce disease, the E.coli F18 bacterium needs to bind to the piglet's gut. The attachment cannot occur in resistant animals.

While such results are highly promising, however, progress in breeding for better disease resistance is likely to stay slow. The host pathogen interaction is multi-dimensional, dynamic and exceedingly complicated, which makes it difficult to propose one-size-fits-all solutions in the short term.
Identity preservation is a relatively new entry among biotech applications, but it has the distinction of being practiced today. As one example it is used to check for the presence of pork in products. The laboratory can establish which meats are present in the product by analysing a sample for its DNA content.

Possibility

The possibility now exists to use a similar analysis in identifying the precise breed of pigs from which a particular piece of pork was derived. The technique is quite simple. The DNA in tiny pieces of tissue is screened for a number of specific markers relating to identity preservation. The differences mean these can be used in cascade to separate and identify the various breeds as part of such system.
Whatever else is achieved through biotechnologies in the pig production sector, they will certainly bring an increased level of control of prolificacy, growth, efficiency and lean meat deposition and an improved homogeneity of slaughter pigs. In the longer term, they will be key contributors to maintaining high pig health - and they offer great possibilities for customising pork and adding to its market value.