Public administration :

Concept, Function and

Challenges.
By Sushant Gauli

Concept of Public Administration

Public Administration is a branch of political science dealing primarily with the
structure and workings of agencies charged with the administration of
governmental functions. It is both an academic discipline and a field of
practice. 'Public' can be looked at formally to mean 'Government'. So, public
administration is government administration, government in action or a socio-
economic and politico-administrative confluence, the focus being especially
on public bureaucracy.

Various scholars describe Public Administration are:

 Woodrow Wilson : Public administration is the detailed and systematic

application of law. Every particular application of law is an act of
administration.

 L.D. White : Public administration consists of all those operations having

for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy.

 H.A. Simon, D.W. Smithburg and V.A. Thompson : By public administration is

meant, in common usage, the activities of the executive branches of
national, state and local governments, government cooperation and
certain other agencies of a specialised character. Specifically excluded are
judicial and legislative agencies within the government and non-
governmental administration.

The traditional definitions of Public Administration, which are given above

reflect the view that the Public Administration is only involved in carrying out
the policies and programmes of the government. It reflect that it has no role in
policy making and also locates the administration in the executive branch.

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 1

 But today the term public administration is used in a broader sense that it is
not only involved in carrying out the programmes of the government, but it
also plays an important role in policy formulation and covers the three
branches of the government.
In this context, we may reflected on the definition offered by F.A. Nigro and
L.G. Nigro. According to them Public Administration:

 is co-operative group effort in a public setting;

 covers all three branches-executive, legislative, and judicial, and their inter-
relationships;

 has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part
of the political process;

 is different in significant ways from private administration; and

 is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in

providing services to the community”.

In summary, public administration:

 is the non-political public bureaucracy operating in a political system;

 deals with the ends of the State, the sovereign will, the public interests and
laws;

 is the business side of government and as such concerned with policy

execution, but it is also concerned with policy-making;

 covers all three branches of government, although it tends to be

concentrated in the executive branch;

 provides regulatory and service functions to the people in order to attain

good life;

 differs significantly from private administration, especially in its emphasis

on the public; and

 is interdisciplinary in nature as it draws upon other social sciences like

political science, economics and sociology.

Functions of Public Administration

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 2

  Basis of the Government:
A Government can exist without a legislature or an independent judiciary.
But no Government can exist without administration. Public administration
is not only the operative but also the most obvious part of the
government. It is government in action and occupies a significant place not
merely as an instrument of governance but also as an important
mechanism for preserving and promoting the welfare of community.

 An instrument for providing services:

Public administration is mainly concerned with the performance of various
activities performed by government in the public interest. Felix A. Nigro
aptly remarks, “The real core of administration is the basic service which is
performed for the public”.

 An instrument for implementing policies:

Modern governments go a long way in formulating and adopting sound
policies laws and regulations. It should not be forgotten that such policies,
laws, etc. are not merely printed papers. Such paper declarations of intent
are translated into reality by public administration thus converting words
into action and form into
substance.

 A stabilising force in society:

Public administration is a major force for bringing stability in society. It has
been observed that though government often changes, but violent change
is seldom experienced by administration. An element of continuity between
the old and the new orders is provided by public administration. It does
not hold true only of constitutional changes of government in democratic
countries, but is also reflected when there are revolutionary changes in the
form and character of government.

 An instrument of social change and economic development:

Public administration’s role as a change agent is particularly crucial in
developing nations. It is expected of the state at present to work for
accelerating socio-economic change and not to be a passive agency to
maintain the status quo.

 Technical Character:
The present day government is expected to provide various services to its
population. The increase in the number of functions undertaken by the
government require highly specialised, professional and technical, services.

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 3

 Modern public administration usually represents a galaxy of all of a
nation’s occupations.

Challenges of Public Administration

 Endowment Constraints: Some of the public sector enterprises,
particularly some of the loss-incurring enterprises are suffering from
endowment constraints as the selection of sites of these enterprises were
done on political considerations rather than on rational considerations.

 Under-Utilisation of Capacity: Under-utilisation of the production

capacities are one of the common constraints from which almost all public
sector enterprises are suffering. In 198687, out of the 175 public sector
units 90 units had been able to utilize over 75 per cent of its capacities, 56
units achieved utilisation of capacities between 50 and 75 per cent and the
rest 29 units could somehow managed to utilize under 50 per cent of its
capacities.
This had been mainly due to the reasons such as long gestation periods,
huge in-built capacities, ambitious scales of planning based on inadequate
economic (particularly market) data, inadequate motivation, lack of
initiatives and obsolescence of the product mix.

 Absence of Rational Pricing: Public sector enterprises in India are suffering

from absent of rational pricing as the prices of their products are
determined by such a price policy which has three considerations like
(a) Profit as the basis of price fixation,
(b) No-profit basis of public utility approach, and
(c) Import-parity price.
Thus, formal and informal regulations of prices by the Government in the
interest of the economy and consumers, in general, and of price
stabilization are also responsible for huge losses incurred by some of
these enterprises of our country. Moreover, subsidization of the prices of
some of the produce by these public enterprises had added a new
dimension to the problems.

 Technological Gap: Some of the public sector enterprises in India are

suffering from technological gap as these enterprises could not adopt up-
to-date technologies in their production system leading to high unit cost

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 4

 and lower yield. Enterprises like I.I.S.C.O., E.C.L. etc. are suffering from this
constraint.

 Government Interference: Much government interference in the day to

day activities of the public sector enterprises has reduced the degree of
autonomy of the managements in respect of employment, pricing,
purchase etc.

 Heavy Social Costs: Public sector enterprises are suffering from heavy
social costs such as the outlays on townships and allied provision of
amenities to its employees.

 Operational and Managerial Inadequacies: The public sector enterprises in

India are also suffering from operational and managerial inadequacies and
inefficiencies leading to huge wastages and leakages of funds in their day-
to-day activities.

 Evil Competition and Sabotage: Between the public sector and private
sector units within the same industry sometimes there exists evil
competition which leads to sabotaging of public sector units at a large
scale.

 Marketing Constraint: Some public sector units are even faced with
marketing constraints where due to repetitive type of production mix they
could not collect a good market for some of their products where the
market is already captured by some big private industrial houses leading
to a constant increase in inventories.

 Surplus Manpower: In some of the public sector units there is the problem
of surplus manpower which is creating drainage of resources unnecessarily
leading to increase in the unit cost of production. Political considerations
have also contributed towards overstaffing of unskilled workers in these
units.

 External Factors: Workers engaged in the public sector enterprises are
lacking sincerity and devotion to their job leading to wastage of working
hours which finally affects productive capacities of these enterprises.
Moreover, external factors like too much trade unionism, union rivalries
and labour troubles are also disrupting the smooth functioning of the
production system of these public sector enterprises in the country.
Considering the problems of sickness faced by the Public enterprises, the
Standing Conference on Public Enterprises SCOPE had recently

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 5

 constituted a committee to study various aspects of sickness of public
enterprises.

In its recently submitted report (in December, 1995 on its analysis of PSU
problems, the committee felt that too much interference by the
Government in areas like autonomy and accountability, constitution of
board of directors, continuity to top management and little discretionary
powers to management for investment, employment, pricing and wages
affected the PSU performance.

Bad financial planning was another cause of PSU sickness and many sick
companies had over- borrowed.

The SCOPE Committee further regretted that the Government as a

promoter, was charging one per cent fee from its own sick companies for
providing guarantees to bank loans and that too for a limited period of
one year at a time whereas private sector promoters were not charging
any fee for such guarantee.

Various other problems such as allocation of resources, delays in filling up

top-level posts, tight regulations and procedures for investment and
restrictions on functional autonomy of the enterprises, e.g., in respect of
labour and wage policy etc. have been creating serious constraints on the
operational efficiency of public sector enterprises of the country.

Public administration : Concept, Function and Challenges. 6