Bureaucrats can be better than technocrats

Technology is a key aspect of governance today. Technocrats often complement and complete the skills and expertise of bureaucrats engaged in the delivery of various services to people. However, in Telangana, because of certain aberrations in the immediate past, bureaucrats in the energy department suddenly found themselves back in the limelight and somewhat turbo-charged when they visited New Delhi recently. They realized to their chagrin that there were many schemes that Telangana could not utilize. Central government secretaries, on their part, were happy about the curiosity and learnings of the representation from Telangana. A little bird told us that over the past 10 years proper communication was lacking between the state and central level officials. At last, Telangana bureaucrats got a chance to drive home their point that they are on par with, if not better, than technocrats. For newbies, former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had attributed the supposed successful running of the power sector in the state under his rule to the ‘free hand’ given to technocrats and subject matter experts in the state. He had blamed bureaucrats, saying they were not able to run the department efficiently. It seems bureaucrats have just plugged into the right source of power.