Which of the following are the barriers to citizen-centric administration in…
2018
Which of the following are the barriers to citizen-centric administration in India ?
(a) Wooden and inflexible attitude of the civil servants
(b) Ineffective implementation of laws and rules
(c) Awareness of rights and duties of citizens
(d) Lack of job opportunities for the youth Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Answer: D. (a) and (b) only — Concept. An administration is called citizen-centric when the citizen, not the office, is treated as the primary stakeholder: the machinery is judged by how…
- A.
(a), (b), (c) and (d)
- B.
(a), (b) and (c) only
- C.
(a), (b) and (d) only
- D.
(a) and (b) only
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept. An administration is called citizen-centric when the citizen, not the office, is treated as the primary stakeholder: the machinery is judged by how accessible, responsive, transparent and accountable it is to the person it serves. A factor therefore counts as a barrier only if it impedes that citizen-facing responsiveness or accountability — whether the impediment sits inside the administrative machinery or on the citizen’s side of the same interface. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2nd ARC) builds its list of obstacles on exactly this test in its 12th Report,
Citizen Centric Administration – The Heart of Governance (2009).
Application. Put each of the four listed statements through that test.
Statement | Weakens citizen-facing responsiveness? | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
(a) Wooden and inflexible attitude of the civil servants | Yes — a barrier | Rigidity, indifference and a rule-bound, self-perpetuating outlook inside the bureaucracy is the classic attitudinal obstacle: the citizen’s need is fitted to the office’s convenience rather than the other way round. |
(b) Ineffective implementation of laws and rules | Yes — a barrier | A right that exists on paper but is not delivered in practice leaves the citizen with an entitlement and no service; weak enforcement is what converts good law into poor governance. |
(c) Awareness of rights and duties of citizens | No | Awareness is what enables a citizen to demand a service, use a grievance channel and hold an official to account — it is an enabler of citizen-centric administration. The obstacle named in the source list is the lack of awareness; as worded, (c) states its opposite. |
(d) Lack of job opportunities for the youth | No | This is an employment and economic-policy problem. It bears on welfare generally, but it sits outside the citizen–administration interface altogether: it says nothing about how the machinery receives, processes or answers a citizen’s claim, so it is not one of the barriers being asked about. |
Cross-check. The obstacles the 2nd ARC actually enumerates for citizen-centric administration are:
lack of awareness among citizens of their rights and duties;
ineffective implementation of laws and rules;
attitudinal problems of the civil servants — indifference, rigidity, a self-perpetuating outlook;
red tapism and cumbersome, opaque procedures;
lack of transparency and of an effective grievance-redressal mechanism.
Awareness enters that list only in its negative form, and youth unemployment does not enter it at all. Of the four statements as worded, only (a) and (b) appear on it, so the code that selects exactly (a) and (b) is the correct one.