Public Administration: A Blessing in disguise.

Public Administration has been most debated optional in UPSC preparation, as it has a big chunk of students who are either struggling to cope with it or who have given up on pubAd and switched to alternatives in search of their destiny. It is also an irony that it has had comparatively lower marking despite being most relevant to the profile of a bureaucrat, an IAS, for which we all aspire, thus leading to discouragement in minds of many aspirant, who dream to be a district collector yet fear from an optional, which provides insights about that pioneering dream.

Why I chose this optional:

When I filled up form for CSE-2014, I had still not made my mind about preparation and I don't know why but I had filled Public Administration as an optional. when I decided to start preparing seriously since July-2014 onwards, I was confused about choosing an optional for serious preparation and then my friend Anupam Singhal came to my rescue, as he had already started coaching for this and thus advised me to read chapter on District Collector from Arora & Goyal just to check whether I have acumen for the subject or not. I found it interesting and since my time was limited because of my job profile and I had already filled it in CSE-2014, so finally I had to settle with something, Mechanical engineering (My graduation subject) was not an option for me and hence Public Administration turned out to be a candid choice. 

My experience with PubAd in UPSC:

Fortunately, I cleared Prelims 2014 and by that time I had only completed 80% of Paper-1 syllabus and almost blank on paper-2, So I borrowed notes of my friend and read major portions like Union, state, judiciary, civil services, PRI and ULB in that limited time frame along with paper-1. I scored 213 (108+106) in CSE-2014 Mains and It was good with any standard of PubAd, so I understood that PubAd will not disappoint me later and eventually it did not in CSE-2015, where I have scored 247 (132+115) and hence took me to AIR-6.

Coaching and Test series:

Classroom By M.K.Mohanty sir at synergy.

Test series at synergy and Pavan Kumar sir.

Reference books and material topic wise which I referred:

1. Introduction: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1, Prasad & prasad for administrative thinkers (1st chapter) and Nicholas Henry (only paradigms of PA, which was also taught by mohanty sir in classroom)
2. Administrative thought: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Prasad & prasad for administrative thinkers, IGNOU material for MA.
3. Administrative Behaviour: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, synergy classnotes.
4. Organisations: Synergy classnotes and New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Synergy printed material ( for HQ-field & PPP)
5. Accountability and control: Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya and IGNOU material for MPA, this part requires extensive use of case study and current events.
6. Administrative Law: synergy classnotes and printed material.
7. Comparative public Administration: Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya and Fred Riggs from Prasad & Prasad. (please read critique of Riggsian Model specifically)
8. Development dynamics: New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Social theory by Mohit Bhattacharya, Synergy classnotes, Vajiram classnotes of governance for self-help group movement.
9. Personnel Administration: Synergy class notes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & fadia (paper-1 and paper-2), 2nd ARC 10th report.
10. Public Policy:  Synergy classnotes, IGNOU material complete on public policy, extensive use of current events and few examples from foreign countries, particularly with regard to policy evaluation.
11. Techniques of Administrative Improvement:  Synergy classnotes (less important here), Synergy printed material, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya; honestly any material will do for this topic.
12. Financial Administration: 14th report of 2nd ARC, Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1 to understand historical underpinnings.

Paper-2

1. Evolution of Indian Administration: Synergy classnotes, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
2. Philosophical & constitutional framework: Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal, any other book for Indian polity (I would suggest DD Basu selected chapters for this).
3. Public sector undertakings: SYnergy classnotes and factual data generated from internet, chapter on PSUs in Fourteenth finance commission report. 
4. Union govt. & Judiciary: Synergy Classnotes, GS-2 Polity notes, Summary of Punchhi Commission report and other recommendations only of various commissions like sarkaria, NCRWC. Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal (for cabinet secretariat, PMO, attached offices, central secretariat)
5. Plans & Priorities: Synergy classnotes and mainly current events of Indian economy, this topic has lost its relevance largely because of abolition of planning commission.
6. State Govt & Administration: Synergy classnotes, Punchhi commission report, NCRWC recommandations, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
7. District Administration since Independence: Synergy classnotes, 2nd ARC 15h report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
8. Civil Services: This Topic has to be read along with personnel administration and hence booklist is more or less same.Synergy class notes, Fadia & fadia (paper-1 and paper-2), 2nd ARC 10th report; remember recommendations of committees like surendranath, HOTA, Yugandhar, kothari, suresh chandra committee, also recommandations of central pay commissions like 5th, 6th may add value to the answer.
9. Financial management: This Topic has to be read along with financial administration; 14th report of 2nd ARC, Synergy classnotes, New Horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, Fadia & Fadia paper-1 to understand historical underpinnings and also website of ministry of finance, particularly the departments in MoF and their specific functions. For CAG, Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal.
10. Administrative reforms since independence: Mainly factual topic, synergy classnotes, synergy printed material and any book that you have for paper-2, this topic requires memorizing key observations of various committees right from 1950s i.e. A.D.Gorwala commission till today; please follow the key theme about which a commission has talked about. for example: Secretariat reforms were talked specifically by Girija shankar Bajpai committee.
11. Rural Development Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 6th report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal, website of Ministry of Panchayati Raj for case studies, Kurukshetra magazine.
12. Urban Local Government: Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 6th report and Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal; Yojana for smart city, various case studies from newspapers.
13. Law & Order Administration:  Synergy classnotes, summary of 2nd ARC 5th report, briefly read recommendations of various commissions that are constituted till date, electoral reforms, case studies for good practices in various conutries; the biggest topic here is accountability of police (we can refer 3 tier accountability of london police as a model to be followed in indian police), wole of centre in Law & order administration of a state (particularly debate surrounding article-355), punchhi commission report on this.
14. Significant issues in Indian Administration: Indian Administration by Arora & Goyal (last few chapters), Synergy printed material, 4th report of 2nd ARC, for disaster management read what you are reading for GS, just remember J.C.Pant committee report, P.K.Mishra committee, CAG observations on NDMA and 2nd ARC recommandations; crowd management is the newest emerging issue in this area.

GENERAL STRATEGY WHICH I WOULD RECOMMEND NOW

1. Read Indian Administration by Arora & goyal, Almost all the chapters are relevant.
2. Administrative thinkers by prasad & prasad right from Introduction, read word by word including summary, evaluation, critical evaluation, try to connect & internalize.
3. All the chapters needs to be read in administrative thinkers, because even if peter drucker is not mentioned in syllabus, he can be quoted anywhere if government organisations are to be criticised (a big time critic of government) also many questions are coming from those thinkers who are not mentioned in the syllabus and hence Prasad & prasad is the best book on which the base is to be built, so read verbatim, make your own notes and you can complement it with classnotes of any coaching, This book is the one base on which we will ride on for paper-1.
4. Once you are through with Administrative thinkers and Introduction part of Paper-1, now refer to those chapters in New Horizons by Mohit Bhattacharya, establish the links and thus concepts will become crystal clear in mind.
5. After going through classnotes of all the topics, read New horizons again and again untill all the things do not become clear in your mind.
6. For paper-2, generally classnotes works fine along with value addition from ARC report, Fadia & Fadia is good for factual information, which will add value to the answers.
7. Use Constitutional Articles, statements/ observations of 2nd ARC, rather than only using recommendations from these reports.
8. Use basic examples from daily newspapers to add understanding to your answer.
9. Use and quote name of various administrative thinkers as and when you can do so, do not hesitate to connect a vague concept with thinker. (for example, in case of policy paralysis/failure, we can refer to single loop/double loop learning i.e. organisational learning of chris argyris, wherein we can say that it is the failure of both policy making and implemantation and both play blame game)
10. Use Simplest language along with very common examples, complexity is not going to work, to add value quote thinkers/key words of the subject, but please keep the language and vocabulory to the simplest, this is not GRE, dont pull english string much.

Other materials which is relevant:

• Case studies:

newspapers, website of ministry of panchayti raj 

http://www.panchayat.gov.in/documents/401/84079/sashaktikaran_puraskar.pdf

Other relevant documents like, find any government report on Social Audit and grasp some of the best case studies/success stories of social audit, similarly for other dynamic topics like accountability, transparency any good working example may be used.

Use International best experiences like:
ICAC of hongkong in public service delivery,
False claims act of USA

(2nd ARC reports provide some very good case studies on almost all the governance topic. For example: if e-governance is being referred, most of us will write gyandoot of MP Govt as a successful project, now if we can write gyandoot along with a case study from 2nd ARC (e-Registry in muzzaffarpur district of Bihar, it has minimised corruption, all the processes are online, no exchange of money and hence less corruption), this will give a difference to our answer.

For Police reforms, we can quote south african police act.

For Public Policy chapter: CONEVAL in mexico for policy evaluation, wherein policy evaluation has become mandatory and on the basis of that, they devise new policy, so rather than following incrementalist paradigm, they follow full policy cycle, which we lack in India and bacause of which Progresa of mexico has become most successfull social security plan of the world.

http://www.coneval.org.mx/Paginas/principal_EN.aspx

Please read atleast 4th report of 2nd ARC thoroughly, it will help both in ethics as well as public administration.

• Observations of various commissions, not recommendations

Find some trivial points in model answers or any other source like:

NCRWC analysed and found that Article-356 was applied on many occasions and there were 13 instances till then, where it was applied despite state govt. having majority in the assembly; it highlights misuse of this article and can be used to supplement our answer. This is not a recommendation rather it is an observation; recommendations everyone may write but not observation and that too a factual one, it will add value and weight to your answer. 

Out of the box sources will help for example: Using 14th finance commission report in quoting PSEs; I am not saying read whole report, if time permits do read but find some unique points about a topic; for example: FFC observed that disinvestment in PSEs needs to be coupled with Reinvestment in few other emerging sectors, very rarely people quote FFC on PSEs but this is where difference will come.

• Facts on Indian Administration:

Always try to start or end your answer with some facts, which add weight to the answer, various sources are:

Economic survey of India.

PRS website.

Association for democratic reforms (mainly for parliament/ electoral reforms)

14th Finance commission Report.

Budget of Govt. Of India.

few books like Fadia & fadia are good for facts about Indian Administration.

• Referring judgement of Higher Judiciary:

I think that we all will agree on how important quoting SC/HC judgements are, while writing an answer, particularly in paper-2 of the subject; we all have a good repository of such cases and I think No elaboration is required for this part, but it is the still the time tested method to fetch marks, some things do not change even in turbulence and so are judgements of our hon'able judiciary, please use them as much as you can.

• Most Important: Linkage between paper-1 and paper-2 and use of names of thinkers while writing an idea.

We all know this and understand that to score in public administration, effective linkage is required between paper-1 and paper-2; it revolves mainly around 3 things viz:

Using thinkers in paper-2.

Using Indian Administration in paper-1.

Using Administrative Thinkers in all the answers you can.

It shows how deep you understand the subject and is absolutely required for fetching marks in this drought hit subject.

• Try to write key ideas of all the thinkers available in Prasad & prasad and make a gist of key idea everyone has given.
• Apart from those thinkers, there are few scholors in field of Pubad, whose name can be quoted in that particular topic. (I have made a gist of all this and am attaching herewith, these were made from synergy classnotes and a bit of model answers of various test series).

 For example:

Dwight Waldo for New public administration.

Golembwiski for his goals and anti goals in NPA.

Gordon tullock & ANthony downs in Public choice theory.

We all know that government is different from governance, but if we could use the name of James Rosenau wherever we quote this idea, it will be better.

Fred Riggs is my most admired thinker because his ideas are relevant in any question on Indian Administration, be it corruption, declining standards of Indian Polity, his 4 key works i.e. Hetrogenity, overlapping, Formalism and formation of clect are the ideas which can be used almost anywhere in paper-2; His bazar-canteen model can be used wherever we are quoting corruption or even for that matter decline in performance of PSEs, because crony capitalism may be growing, paving way for private firms and limiting role of PSEs and that is best explained by Riggs that market is dominated by private sector i.e. by those who have more bargaining power extract more from government, from here we can connect Fred riggs in State vs. Market debate.

Few examples on how to do linkages:

• Motivation: We can use a transparent annual confidential report (ACR) of Govt. Of India, particlualrly after some changes in 2009 to boost motivation in an organisation. (Civil services with administrative behaviour)
• Employer-employee relations: use JCM, joint consultative mechanism of GoI in paper 1, also quote M.P.Follet wherever there is conflict resolution.
• Secretariat reforms: we can use Henry Fayol's principle of departmentalization based on 4 Ps and then can conclude that these are not being followed and hence overlapping and repetition is occuring, again bring Riggsian overlapping here, which is resulting in formalism and hence less efficiency in government organisations.
• Whenever we are talking about effectiveness & relevance of Indian Bureaucracy, we can quote Alvin Toffler, who says its not bureaucracy rather Adhocracy which is successful and then conclude that rather than a mechanistic & rigid bureaucracy, an organic & flexible BC is required.
• Key theme of Etzioni is Goal Displacement, which can always be used to criticize the excessive rule orientation of BC, wherein means become the end.
• Haque can always be used in changing standards of accountability, his 3 tier paradigm of Standards, agents and means are most succinct way of answering any question related to accountability, be it social audit or RTI or changing standards of Indian parliament (the apex institution for ensuring accountability)

I Hope a clear pattern is emerging in these examples, every scholar has one key theme with him/her and most of the questions revolve around these themes, all we have to do is jot down that key theme with name of the thinker and the topics in which He/she can be mentioned; believe me friends It will do Wonders, do not hesitate to use the name of a scholar, it is required, for it is not a GS paper.

These linkages will develop only when we have clear understanding of all the topics and the keywords are deeply ingrained in our mind and for these inter linkages and understanding, there can not be a better book than New horizons of Public Administration By Mohit Bhattacharya, so make sure NH by MB is read repetitively and is understood word by word.

•  Answering the awkward questions:

People always say that it is most difficult to understand the question, it has too complex language and the thinkers which we have not read, I recall only one word which Mohanty sir at synergy used to say---Relax the muscle...think about the question and start writing freely what you know..you may not know philosophy of peter drucker but you can write what has been asked in your words..using all the thinkers that you know...even if you dont know what peter druker has said; So believe in yourself & write. I got 108 last year, when I had not even completed the syllabus of PubAd paper-1, because I wrote what I knew about the topic without bothering for what peter drucker had to say on it.

 

Practice makes a man perfect:

Answer Writing is a thing which unfortunately we can not ignore and hence start practicing, use all the experiments which can be done in mock answers, have a good peer group who like to think out of the box, get your answers evaluated by them, Fortunately I had a very good friend (Sandeep Agrawal), who did few evaluations for me and his suggestions were so honest and precise that it did wonders for me, so make sure you have someone whose tuning fork matches your frequency.

Final Gyan:

My whole blog revolves mainly around doing value addition in our answers, because I have seen many of my friends swinging around that threshold of 200-220 in public administration, while what is required is to jump this threshold and score in the band of 240-270 to ensure IAS and for that few new experiments need to be done, I did few and reached 247 but I hope you will do further innovations in the field of public administration and score beyond 270 someday.

I think you all are smart enough to see that all this experiments and linkages can be developed only after a proper base is built, so initially read the basics prepare the ground for that threshold of 200 marks, it will take 3-4 months to the newcomers, once it is done, do value addition.

Do not fear for the subject, if you have chosen the subject please continue it if you are getting the right pulse for it; if you have understood the question (mostly tricky in PubAd) and have content, no one can stop you from getting selected; Do believe in what you are writing.

I will suggest rather than looking for more books and more content, one should be looking for base source, revise it again and again, but do value addition from multiple sources.

There is No denying the fact that luck is something which is required to clear this examination, specially with public Administration, fortunately it favored me this time and I hope it favors everyone in this subject, so that lost glory of Public administration is restored; I am not a senior player of this arena, yet I guess that monotonicity of the answers of our seniors may have killed the spirit of examiners to award us good marks, so lets change this pattern, do some value additions/innovations on the base provided to us by our seniors and then pray to god, it has worked fine for me, so I believe that it is not a wrong strategy atleast, you can try it if you wish.

This is the reason, My blog revolves mostly around examples, connecting links, developing understanding and using case studies anywhere we can; I had failed only once in my life after not getting an IIT and that was Mains-2014, I too was confused about the future of this optional and one of my friends Mantosh (@liverpool) did market survey and told me just after mains result that only one guy in his public administration circle could clear mains and he says he had used few case studies in his answers, that was the tickle point for me and Since I was still in my basics of public administration, so I tried to mend the path in this direction and it bore fruits to me....almost same thing I have tried to narrate in this awfully narrated story of this idiot, I just hope it works for you too.

I will not say whether you should continue with this optional or leave, I will just say if you have the heart to stay in this arena and are willing to believe in you and your subject, your strengths and maybe willing to use all that I have put in here, cracking CSE with this subject is not going to be an impossible task, it is difficult I agree but not impossible.

Believe yourself please...I would still have attemted CSE-2016 with public administration...even if I had scored poorly in CSE-2015.

All the best for your future endeavors... I hope I have cleared some doubts about how I got 247 this year...I wish it could help as many fellow PubAd students as it can, it is a blessing in disguise as unexpectedly it has put me at a zenith where every aspirant wants to reach, regarding answer writing I have covered in detail in the second post on same URL.

If you have any doubt, you can write to me at--

tiwarivicky.1989@gmail.com

You can also view my answer writing strategy/ethics case study approach/essay writing on youtube, if you wish, by searching: 

Toppers' talk by Ashish Tiwari AIR-6 on vision IAS platform

In the end my sincerest apologies for bringing this blog so late..I understand that I had promised it by end of this month...but laziness and busy schedule on my part had put me away from writing this blog...better late than never is the keyword I guess....

Success is a matter of timing if you are dedicated to the path which will take you there.


Ashish Tiwari 

Some of my answer scripts are as below:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfVXVkUXl4VTZxYlUtRDhIRUVZRGVQSW5fZE9J

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfUnp0eWZnZXF4d28

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz4sn7uKVpyfUlpxU3c5ZzI3X3c