Civil services must be honest, efficient: PM

NEW DELHI: In a clear message to bureaucracy to act fast to change the public perception about government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the civil services must be fair, honest and efficient and make renewed commitment towards disadvantaged in the society. "We must introspect and recognize that there is a great deal of public dissatisfaction with the functioning of government, at all levels of government. This challenge the civil services must endeavour to address as a collective entity," he told the senior officials on the Civil Services Day.

The most important challenge before the civil services was to instil confidence in people that they were fair, honest and efficient, he said. "The poor and the underprivileged complain that the government is biased against them. The business class complains that government is intrusive and slow to act. The middle class complains that government is corrupt and unresponsive", Singh said.

Noting that the civil services needed to make a renewed commitment to placing themselves on the side of the disadvantaged in the society, he said special attention must be paid to the needs of the poor, particularly the SCs, STs, minorities, women and children. "As government moves away from running industries and controlling economic activity, to managing public services delivery, it must pay greater attention to improving its human face," the Prime Minister said.