Sanjeev Sanyal Explains How India Has Been Undertaking 'Process Reforms' Like Trump's Doge | Watch

New Delhi: Hours after US President-elect Donald Trump announced that Tesla owner Elon Musk and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Sanjeev Sanyal, economist and member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, pointed out that India has already been undertaking similar efforts in recent years.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Sanyal shared his thoughts, writing, "The incoming Trump administration has announced a Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk. This is my talk at Republic Conclave yesterday about how India has already been doing a similar effort in recent years (we call them 'process reforms')." 

He also shared a video from his address at Republic Media Network's India Economic Summit 2024, where he discussed how the Narendra Modi -led government has been maintaining efficiency through various reforms.

Sanyal highlighted that, while Musk was promised to create a government efficiency commission in the US is a new step, India has already been implementing such reforms gradually. “Elon Musk was promised to create a government efficiency commission in the US. But here in India, as I said, we have been doing this kind of reforms step by step for quite some time,” he said.

The economist went on to explain the concept of process reforms, which are smaller, incremental changes designed to improve efficiency, contrasting them with the larger, structural reforms that dominate headlines. "What are process reforms? Now most of you will be familiar with the term structural reforms. Whenever you read newspapers, you'll read about structural reforms," Sanyal noted.

He elaborated, saying structural reforms, such as the liberalisation of 1991, the insolvency and bankruptcy code, inflation targeting framework, and GST, fundamentally alter the structure of sectors and industries. In contrast, process reforms are often smaller but essential changes that enhance operational efficiency without drastically altering the system. "These are small nuts and bolts reforms that very often you may not read on the front page of the newspapers, but there are literally hundreds of them. These are the small reforms that don't necessarily change the structure of things, but make that whatever activity it is, work a little bit more efficiently. This is, ladies and gentlemen, the government efficiency effort," he said.

Sanyal then discussed the issue of defunct government organisations, which have long outlived their purpose. "Like any government, we have large numbers of defunct organisations. They were created at some point in time. Perhaps at the time they were created, they had some utility. But unfortunately, it is quite rare that you shut down these kinds of institutions along the way," he remarked.

He further explained that in recent years, efforts have been made to identify and shut down such organisations, particularly autonomous bodies. "A few years ago again, an effort was made to try and find a list of these defunct organisations. Some of these are autonomous bodies. So I'm not here going to get into ministries and departments. That's a story in its own right. But I'm talking here about autonomous bodies," Sanyal said.

To locate these organisations, he recommended a careful examination of the budget papers, which are now available online. "Go into each, don't look at the budget at a glance, that hides all of this stuff. Go and look in the real meat of those budget papers. Go ministry by ministry and somewhere there in the footnote somewhere, in small print, you will find a list of all these institutions. There are some really genuinely obscure ones, let me assure you. Nobody knows why they exist," he explained.

Sanyal pointed out that the central government alone has over 800 autonomous bodies, with many of them no longer serving any useful purpose. "Now some of them, of course, are useful bodies. I mean, the SEBI or Reserve Bank of India, etc., we know what they do. But there are literally large numbers of them that exist that simply need to be shut down," he said. Over the last few years, India has been systematically identifying, merging, or shutting down such bodies.

Sanyal also touched upon the broader efforts to clean up rules, regulations, and laws. "Rules, regulations, laws that need to be cleaned up. Again, a very big effort is being done in this direction," he added.

Lastly, he highlighted the significance of these reforms in specific sectors. "Unless you happen to be from that particular sector, you may never hear about some of these changes, but in those sectors, it makes a massive difference. More often than not, the changes are very simple to do. Simple change, no cost to the system at all and yet imagine the ease of doing business this shows," Sanyal said. 

Sanyal also stressed on the importance of both structural and process reforms, noting that while structural reforms often dominate attention, process reforms are just as critical but frequently overlooked. "As I said, structural reforms are important, but very often these process reforms are ignored."