Importance of Public Administration

Table of Contents

Importance of Public Administration- Relevance ESIC Deputy Director Exam

PART-B of Recruitment Test (RT): Public Administration and Development Issues.

Defining Public Administration:
- Public administration is formed by two different terms, public and administration.
- Public: means government which is mainly focus on government activities and actions
- Administration: is derived from a Latin word “Administer” which means to serve, too direct, to control, to care for or to look after people. The term “administration” means management of public or private affairs.
- Hence, simply public administration is known as the management of public affairs.
Public Administration is nothing but ‘government in action’. Public Administration is the implementation arm of the executive.
- Public Administration is responsible for the implementation of government policies.
Public administration is a feature of all nations, whatever their system of government.
- Within nations public administration is practiced at the central, intermediate, and local levels.
- The relationships between different levels of government within a single nation constitute a growing problem of public administration.
We have already covered following topics of Public Administration-

Importance of the Public Administration can be discussed from two point of views-
- Importance of Public Administration as a specialized subject of study (as a discipline)
- Importance of Public Administration as an activity (implementation wing of the state)
Public administration is basically affecting us in our daily life as well in the long run. For example, if we taking a bus to our office, we are interacting with the bureaucracy directly (govt bus) or indirectly (fair includes taxes as well).

As a discipline or area of study, public administration is important due to following reasons-
- Identifying challenges of administration: It identifies various issues and challenges faced by the administration in delivery public services and upholding public interests.
- Providing solutions to administrative challenges: after identifying the challenges public administration as a discipline conducts studies and provides theories for providing solutions to these challenges.
- Hence, often government commissions many committees and commissions to look into the problems of the administration and recommend suitable administrative machinery to rectify the problems.

The emergence of the ‘Administrative State’ in contemporary times has made public administration an indispensable part of our society.
Its scope and nature are continuously expanding due to the increasing complexity of administration and the ever-increasing demand for effective and efficient delivery of public services.
Activities of public administration include the implementation of various welfare measures as well as regulating various aspects of the administration itself.
- Examples of providing welfare services include activities in areas like Health, Education. Employment, Law and Order, etc.
- Regulation activities are like RBI governor regulating the banking sector, SEBI regulating trading activities in the country.