To Feel Aam Aadmi's Pain, Do This: Raghuram Rajan's Advice To Babus

Mumbai: Asking bureaucrats to function for a day without their assistants, Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Monday that it will sensitise them to the travails of the 'aam aadmi' or common man, and help in better discharge of their duties.

The outspoken Governor said he wants to introduce a similar system for senior officials at RBI as well wherein they can be asked to discharge some simple banking duties to make them understand difficulties faced by others.

"One could, as senior officials, try to spend a day doing some task which they ask their assistants to do but without revealing who they are and getting the assistance," Mr Rajan said while addressing bureaucrats at the state secretariat.

"Perhaps, then we will have a much better sense of what an aam aadmi faces and a much greater sympathy for changing the system than we have otherwise," he said while delivering the YB Chavan Memorial Lecture at Mantralaya.

He said a lot of officials, including himself, realise that the system is difficult only when they retire or leave the office where they are helped by assistants.

"Post retirement, the system is much harder to deal with than pre-retirement," he added.

Mr Rajan said he is mulling introducing the system within RBI where senior officials will be tasked to do simple things like changing the nominee of a fixed deposit account, which shall make them learn about the difficulties.

The remarks come at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is seeking to take special steps to make the bureaucracy more accountable and also assess it on its performance.