Don't be robots, spend quality time with family: PM to babus

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday advised bureaucrats not live like robots and spend quality time with their families.

"You are very good at time management but do you spend quality time with your family. Please think about this," he said.

Modi asked bureaucrats to imagine whether or not their life has become "robotic". "If it has happened than this impacts the whole government and system. We can't be robotic. That can't be our life," the prime minister said during an hour-long interaction with civil servants at the 9th Civil Services Day function at Vigyan Bhawan.

Giving a pep talk to the officers, Modi said none of them should look withered.

"It is not that your life should become like a file. If a government is there, files will be there, there is no alternative. It (file) is your 2nd 'ardhang' (better half). If you do not care about life, it will get stuck in files," the Prime Minister said.

Modi said he needed bureaucrats who are full of energy.

"I have never been to Mussoorie (the location of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration where all-India services officers are trained). But is it there that one should be very serious, one should be carrying the world's burden?

"Why are you sitting like that? I am not going to ask you to do any new work," Modi said, taking a dig at taut-looking officers, evoking peals of laughter.

"You read a lot. You must have read books written by the best people in the world. You are basically of this nature and that's why you are here. He who does 'union baji' in college doesn't come here. He who is lost in books comes here," he said, evoking a huge round of applause.

He said the government's work is not only to run departments. "We have to innovative, modernise within the department as well," the prime minister said.

Modi also asked bureaucrats to follow the principle of 'Sheelam Param Bhushanam' (character is the highest virtue) -- motto of the Mussoorie-based training institute.

Advocating reforms in bureaucracy, Modi said there is a need to give impetus to reforms and technology as the day is not far when the world will look at m-governance or mobile governance.

Remembering Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Prime Minister said it was natural to recall the contribution of country's first Home Minister, who had worked for integration of India.

"Today, the need is socio-economic integration. We think of a model that gives importance to integration, that brings the people closer to each other," he said.

Asking the civil servants to value the importance of life, Modi said otherwise it would become uninteresting just like a page of any file.

"A life full of tension cannot achieve anything, especially when you have to run the nation... You are very good at time management but do you spend quality time with your family? Please think about this," he said.

Congratulating officers who were honoured for their distinguish service in different fields, the Prime Minister said there was a lot to learn or replicate the good works done by the awardees.

"Our work is not only to run departments. We have to be innovative, modernise within the department as well," he said adding, "We need to give priority to perfection and capacity building".

Modi asked civil servants to maintain a positive outlook, convert adversity into opportunity, and strive towards perfection.

He said socio-economic integration should also be an objective of the civil services and national unity today implied an end to the digital divide, urban-rural divide, and all forms of socio-economic inequity.

According to him, as the Indian economy moves from "scarcity" to "plenty," the civil services required capacity building to be able to better serve people.

He said bureaucrats are used to work in scarcity like fund crunch and all.

"India is going to have a big problem as to how to work in plenty. Resources are going to increase. Economic situation is going to improve but if our capacity building does not improve within the governance then we will not be able to use this
money in right way at right time."

Modi said urban bodies suffer due to lack of manpower because of which consultancies and NGOs have to be given major works.

He urged senior civil servants to spend time in motivating youth to aspire for, and join the civil services, to ensure that the best talent was available to the government.

He also referred to a Goldman-Sachs report which said it will take India a decade to reach the Asian average on government effectiveness and urged civil servants to end the "silo-approach" and work as a team.

Modi said that teams of officers from various states should take up as case studies, the award winning projects, and ensure that these are adopted as best practices, wherever possible. He called upon all civil services to develop an institutional memory.

He also asked civil services officer to interact with the college students at least once in a year.