Role of Ethics in Indian Administration for Effective and Efficient Public Service Delivery

Ethics has been the distinctive feature of Indian administration since ancient times. Public servants were expected to follow strict ethical principles and the immoral ones were shown no leniency. Today, India has developed in several spheres, but unfortunately it is facing severe ethical crisis in both administrative and political system. Even the recent trends in public administration create a conception that the capacity of democratic system of our country to ensure probity in public life is rapidly deteriorating. As ours is a developing economy, thus it is through better network of public service delivery we can achieve inclusive and sustainable development goals. There is a need to think deeply over ethical issues and to re-establish the significance of ethical principles in the Indian administrative system. This paper discusses the theoretical aspects of ethics in Indian administrative system, its need and increasing role in current scenario. In this paper the public service which has been taken is the ration distribution to the poor households through the ration card. The objective of the study is to explore and examine the root causes of ethical crises among the state functionaries and its impact on delivery of public services with special reference to Public Distribution System (hereafter cited as PDS). The paper attempts to find out what role can ethics play in delivering this basic need of life i.e. food to the poor.

Keywords:
Ethics, Governance, Public Service Delivery, Public Distribution System.