Bureaucratic Rules & Their Implications: A Study of Jammu & Kashmir Bureaucratic Procedures

It is a known fact that things are rarely accomplished in the Indian bureaucracy, in general, and the J&K bureaucracy, in particular. Projects rarely reach their stage of culmination, for one reason or the other. The major reasons that even a layman perceives are, adherence to a plethora of rules & regulations and the primacy of means rather than ends in official work. The end result most obviously is red tapism, official delay and goal displacement. While on one hand, bureaucratic rules act as safeguards against the tyranny, favouritism and corruption in official dealings, they tend to kill dynamism, innovativeness, initiative, discretion and efficiency. In fact over bureaucratization is greatly responsible for our underdeveloped state of administration and governance. These age-old procedures and rules have over a period of time turned out to be nothing but tools in the hands of the bureaucrats, lending them power and monopolization. It is high time, conservativeness and excessive controls are done away with and new innovative, high tech modern and efficient procedures are adopted for deft and appropriate goal attainment. A study of the J&K bureaucracy vis-Ã -vis its rigidity of rules and procedural preferences, along with the related implications, has been depicted through this paper.