ADVERTISEMENTS:
Here is an essay on ‘Development Administration’ for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Development Administration’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay on Development Administration
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Meaning of Development Administration
- Essay on the Concept of Development Administration
- Essay on the Characteristics of Development Administration
- Essay on the Scope of Development Administration
- Essay on the Role of Bureaucracy in Development Administration
Essay # 1. Meaning of Development Administration:
Edward Weidner defined it as “the process of guiding an organisation toward the achievement of progressive political, economic and social objectives that are authoritatively determined in one manner or the other”.
Merle Fairsoul regarded development administration as “a carrier of innovating values…It embraces the array of new functions assumed by developing countries embarking on the path to modernization and industrialisation.
Development administration involves the establishment of machinery for planning economic growth and mobilizing and allocating resources to expand national income.” To Montgomery, development administration connotes “carrying planned change in the economy or capital infrastructure and to a lesser extent in the social services especially health and education.”
In the above definitions, development administration is used in two inter-related senses. First, it refers to the administration of development programmes, and the methods used by large- scale organisation, notably government to implement policies and plans designed to meet these developmental objectives.
Second, it, “by implication, rather than directly, involves the strengthening of administrative capabilities.” These two aspects of development administration, i.e., administration of development and development of administration are intertwined in most definitions of the term.” Riggs observes, “Administration cannot normally be improved very much without changes in the environmental constraints (the infrastructure) that hampers its effectiveness and the environment itself cannot be changed unless the administration of development programmes is strengthened.”
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Donald Stone has analyzed the concept of development administration in terms of plans, policies, programmes and projects towards the achievement of developmental goals.
In his own words, “Broadly, development administration is concerned with achieving national development. The goals, values and strategies of change may vary but there always are generic processes through which agreement on goals is reached and plans, policies, programmes, and projects (4 Ps) are formulated and implemented. Development administration, therefore, is concerned primarily with the tasks and processes of formulating and implementing the four P’s in respect to whatever mixture of goals and objectives may be politically determined.”
Bata K. Dey remarks “Development is a total plan of action to bring about a decided or guided change in all aspects of social activity geared to national progress with a heavy import of achievement of programmatic goals” Pai Panandiker portrays Development administration as administration of planned change.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
To sum up, development administration is concerned with:
(i) The formulation and implementation of plans, policies, programmes and projects for national development, and
(ii) Development of administrative machinery and processes adequately suited to the task of national development. It is “an action-oriented and goal-oriented administrative system.”
Though there are many scholars who have defined Development administration in their own way yet the major thrust has been rivotted on it being action oriented, goal oriented administrative system’s change oriented result oriented citizen participative oriented.”
Essay # 2. Concept of Development Administration:
Development administration as a concept is a by-product of the comparative study of public administration in developing countries which are making efforts to attain self-generated economic growth.
The term is of recent origin. It was first coined by U.L. Goswami in 1955, but the formal recognition to it was given when the Comparative Administration Group of the American Society for Public Administration and the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Sciences Research Council of the U.S.A. laid its intellectual foundations.
The scholars popularizing this concept are Fred. W. Riggs, Edward W. Weidner, Joseph La Polombara, Albert Waterson etc.
The emergence of welfare state and the end of colonial era are the two significant changes in the present century. After the Second World War a number of countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America emerged as independent states.
During colonial regime these countries were stricken with poverty, hunger, ignorance, inequality and backwardness. After getting political freedom from their colonial masters, they started moving from an undeveloped or underdeveloped economy to developed economy.
In the process they had to pass through the stage of developing economy. Thus, these countries are called developing countries faced with numerous problems of underdevelopment. Their main task is to bring about socio-economic transformation through planned change.
Since conventional administration both as a discipline and as a field of applied technologies is concerned more with ‘system improvement’, the need was felt to develop a separate branch of public administration which would concentrate its study to the socio-economic and administrative problems of developing countries. Hence the notion of development administration was conceptualized.
Essay # 3. Characteristics of Development Administration:
What has been said so far, gives the reader an idea about the nature of the development administration.
The following characteristics may, however, be pointed out:
(i) Socio-Economic Change:
The development administration is mainly concerned with socio-economic change. It is the special orientation which distinguishes it from traditional administration which is basically concerned with maintenance of status quo.
(ii) Goal Orientation and Innovation:
Development administration is action-motivated and innovative. It is oriented to the achievement of certain pre-determined goals. Its performance is directly related to productivity. It is concerned with the will to develop, the mobilization of existing and new resources and the cultivation of appropriate skills to achieve the development goals.
(iii) Commitment:
In development administration, the organisational role expectation is commitment to socio-economic change and concern for completing time-bound programmes. Bureaucracy is expected to be “involved” and emotionally attached to the jobs they are called to perform.
It requires attitudinal change. The civil service should shed away its procedural rigidities, of a law and order state Police state and change its attitudes and values to meet the demands of new developmental responsibilities.
(iv) Client Orientation:
Another characteristic of development administration is that it is client-oriented. It has to be positively oriented towards satisfying the needs of the people in specific target groups like backward classes, tribal groups, scheduled castes, workers and women etc. The people are not the passive beneficiaries, they are the active participants in the development of public welfare programmes.
Efforts are made to enlist the cooperation of non-governmental agencies in the formulation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects for national development. Many a programme of social welfare like family planning, community development cannot be successful without people’s active participation.
(v) Time Frame-Work:
Time is of great significance in developmental administration as socio-economic changes have to be brought as quickly as possible. The development programmes are prepared for a certain time-frame say, five years, and must be completed within that period. Modern technologies are used and new organizations are created for undertaking many types of economic and social functions.
The Planning Commission is one such big organization. The Departments of Community Development, Women and Child Welfare, Social Welfare and Rural Development are some other new organizational set up with defined objectives and functions relating to national development.
To sum up, development administration is an innovative administration acquiring new skills and new ideas. It emphasizes on group performance and inter-group collaboration rather than on individual performance.
It involves employing of trained manpower and improving the existing staff, using of sophisticated aids to decision-making and adopting empirical approach to problem solving as well as problem finding. It also involves an interdisciplinary approach taking help from varied social and physical sciences, like economics, demography, statistics, mathematics and computer science etc.
Essay # 4. Scope of Development Administration:
Developments administration is the administration of development and development of administration. Thus, it encompasses all such activities of the government which are initiated to accelerate the national development in the economic, social and political fields as well as administrative development.
To Riggs, the scope of development administration extends to all those areas in which a government makes efforts to carry out programmes designed to reshape its physical, human and cultural environment and also the struggle to enlarge a government’s capacity to engage in such programmes.
Fred W. Riggs, in fact is one of the most innovative advocates of the theory. He considers ‘development as a process of increasing autonomy (discretion) of social systems made possible by using level of distraction….’ Discretion according to him is the ability to choose among alternatives while diffraction refers to the degree of differentiation and integration in a social system.
To describe, the scope of development administration includes the following areas:
(i) Extension and Community Services:
These services constitute a form of partnership between the government agencies and the people. The government provides technical, institutional or financial services while the people through voluntary organisations provide active participation to make the operational services successful.
The development administration is based on the realization that community participation in the task of national development is a sine qua non.
Thus, development administration makes investigation of social situations, ascertains better devices and instruments for dealing with social disabilities, psychological handicaps and formulates comprehensive social and economic policies.
(ii) Programme Planning:
After the formulation of comprehensive social and economic policies, another main task of development administration is programme planning. This involves an accurate analysis of available supplies and inputs and their management in such a way as to obtain the optimum outputs.
Much of the failure in development administration is due to faulty programme planning either on account of lack of measurement and systematic estimation of available resources or political pressures.
(iii) Project Management:
Another area of development administration is project management. The present trend is towards high cost projects whether it is in the field of irrigation, power or energy, environmental pollution, and production of goods etc. The Tehri Dam Project, Kamal Refinery Project. Kavery Project, are some such examples.
The major projects require high investments in men, money, materials and organisation. They call for decisions and procedures which would facilitate their preparation and execution. They are undoubtedly a major challenge to the administrative and technical capacity.
The life-cycle of a project from inception to operation contains well marked stages such as project definition and pre-construction phase, construction-management, and operation-management.
The need for sound techniques and methods required in each phase is well-established. Any failure on this account may spell havoc, e.g. there is a controversy about the solid foundation of Tehri Dam Project, whether it is located in earthquake prone area. It is but essential that this aspect must be scientifically analyzed without any political prejudices or extraneous considerations.
It is also important to recognize that project authorities face several problems beyond their power, which can only be resolved by the agencies at governmental level. The government administration must, accordingly ensure that such projects have the requisite organization, competent top-level personnel and boards of directors with the necessary authority.
Project management being a highly technical matter should not be subjected to political considerations or bureaucratic procedures.
(iv) Area Development:
By area development we mean the socio-economic development of a particular area like tribal area, hilly area or any backward area. Earlier it was assumed that the problems arising at area level can be adequately dealt with by focal people and institutions.
It was not recognized that area development is linked with national development and needs planning at state level, of course, in consultation with local people and agencies.
The government now provides a framework within which the local agencies like panchayats, block samitis or municipal committees and voluntary organizations at area level act on their own.
The government extends them grants-in-aid to strengthen their financial position and sort out effectively local problems pertaining to health hygiene supply of water maintenance of parks and gardens and provision of roads etc. Local problems are part of national problems, looked at in terms of given areas and communities.
They are of no less concern to development administration than problems at the state and national level.
(v) Personnel Development:
It is also the responsibility of development administration to ensure availability of trained personnel at each level, organize training, make effective use of trained personnel and adopt improved methods of planning and management.
It would, therefore, be necessary for development administration to organize training programmes and carry out research in the various aspects of management like policy formulation, decision-making, coordination, supervision, direction etc.
Riggs observes Development Administration as a goal oriented administration – an administration which is engaged in the task of achieving progressive political, economic and social goals. Hence he holds “administrative development refers to the increase in the capabilities of our administration system to achieve the prescribed goals “.
Essay # 5. Role of Bureaucracy in Development Administration:
Development administration is concerned not only with the administration of development but also with the development of administration. The development of administration means development of administrative machinery and processes suited to the task of national development. Only through an effective administrative system can the goals of socioeconomic development and nation-building be achieved.
The government being the principal planner, financier, promoter and director of national development depends on bureaucracy for its functioning. Therefore, the role of bureaucracy as an agent of socio-economic change becomes important in the development process.
Some thinkers like Robert K. Merton, Alvin Gouldner, Robert V. Presthus, Warren Bennis have questioned the role of bureaucracy in the development administration. Warren Bennis goes to the extent of saying that bureaucracy is likely to go out of use in the wake of new social system.
Mohit Bhattacharya states that “The Weberian model, according to the critics, is subject to dysfunctional consequences of failings to take into account the individual or behavioural aspects of the people who work within the organization system. It has been observed that the organizational design at best can function in a stable environmental situation. In an unstable environment, as in the course of management of development the structure will be unsuitable to meet the demands of the situation.”
It may be pointed out that in many developing countries, the economic and political situations are unstable.
Joseph La Palombara writes, “The time is evidently past when public officials are expected to sit on the developmental side lines, limiting their roles to fixing of general rules and to providing certain basic services and incentives for those private entrepreneurs who are the major players in the complicated and exciting game of fashioning profound changes in economic and social system… The bureaucracies except for minor and other changes have confined their roles to the fixing up of legal framework. They have remained more or less bound by hierarchy, functioning in accordance with predetermined laws, rules and procedures.”
Dwivedi and Jain write, “Most studies of public administration in developing countries have stressed the viewpoint that the band of officials who have been brought up and trained in the colonial administrative culture, wedded to Weberian characteristics of hierarchy, status and rigidity in the adherence of rules and concerned mainly with the enforcement of law and order and collection of revenues, were quite unfit to perform the duties expected in the changed situation of an administration geared to the task of development.”
The point to emphasize is that after the end of colonial rule, the emerging free states- called the Third World Countries started the process of socio-economic development which led to phenomenal expansion of bureaucracy and the rise of a new class, a bureaucratic bourgeoisie in many of these countries. This class soon acquired social and political paramountcy on account of the various political and social factors.
This new class was western oriented and trained in western methods of administration.
With the aid of western countries in the form of training abroad and financial assistance for development projects, this new class of administrators was able to establish bureaucratic authoritarianism and hierarchical formalism which substituted for mass mobilization and popular participation—the two essential ingredients of development administration.
Riggs says that the speed of change in different functional sectors of developing countries is not uniform.
“Development in public administration (technics) takes place more rapidly than in political institutions like the political executive, legislative, electoral processes etc. This makes bureaucracy more dominant in the developing societies and it exercises disproportionate influence resulting in several serious consequences.”
Ferrel Heady has identified the following major characteristics of bureaucracy in developing countries:
(i) The basic pattern of administration is imitative rather than indigenous;
(ii) The bureaucracies are deficient in skilled manpower necessary for development programme;
(iii) They work for the realization of goals other than the achievement of programme objectives;
(iv) There is widespread discrepancy between form and reality;
(v) Operational autonomy.
The above characteristics portray bureaucracy as hierarchical, unresponsive to public needs, unrepresentative of the population at large and elitist in character. O. Glenn Stahl lists some factors which continue to influence the public administration in most of the developing countries.
These are cultural constraints, former colonial status, entrenched elites, low prestige of specialists, brain drain and government in almoner i.e. government distributing money and help to the poor.
Despite the fact that bureaucracy in developing countries is ill-prepared and ill-motivated for the tasks lying before it, the fact remains that in most of these countries it is the major instrument of social change.
Eisenstaedt observes that bureaucracies in developing countries “helped to maintain the framework of a unified polity as well as the capacity to absorb varied demands and to relate them effectively. Not only were they important instruments for unification and centralization, but they enabled the rulers to implement continuous policy. In addition, they also served as important instruments for mobilization of resources, taxes, manpower and political support.”
There is no basic conflict between bureaucracy and development. No doubt, at present it suffers from certain structural weaknesses and behavioural attitudes, nevertheless, given right orientation in the new content, bureaucracy can be structurally and behaviourally geared to the task of development.
The following changes among others may be helpful to fit bureaucracy into developmental tasks:
(i) There should be de-emphasis of hierarchy to get rid of the conventional organizational pyramid.
(ii) There is need to redesign organizations to enable cooperative decision-making and promote collaborative problem-solving.
(iii) Authority should be decentralized and field units should be strengthened and given more authority for decision-making.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(iv) There should be free flow of communication unhindered by status-levels in the organization.
(v) Merit alone should be the criterion for recruitment of personnel. Adequate arrangements for training should exist.
(vi) Bureaucracy must secure people’s participation and cooperation in development work.
(vii) Behavioural changes are needed to make the bureaucracy change-oriented, result- oriented and people-oriented.
(viii) Professional mobility should be encouraged.