Probity in governance is a societal expectation which citizens demand from public servants, particularly civil servants. Ensuring probity in governance is crucial due to following reasons;
- Legitimacy of the state – Probity in governance helps in building trust among common citizens in the democratic institutions of the state such as Election commission, judiciary in turn, citizens start developing a belief that governance machinery is working for their collective welfare.
- Reducing Public Trust deficit – It helps in boosting overall confidence of common people in the governance machinery since citizens’ basic expectation, to be governed by honest public servants, gets fulfilled.
- Objective and Fairness in decision making – It helps in taking up independent and objective decisions on crucial questions of governance. For example, allocation of funds on various public projects – which one to prefer – social or economic infra project.
- Checks and balances – It helps in checking the abuse and misuse of power by various public servants through a strong system and network of transparency and accountability. For example, provision of RTI, departmental inquiry committee etc.
- Serving constitutional goals – Constitutional goals as enshrined in the preamble can be realized only when public servants subscribe to the highest standards of probity in governance which in turn leads to the efficient and effective governance, compassionate bureaucracy and collective welfare of citizens at large.
- Politicization of bureaucracy can be kept under control since ensuring probity helps in elimination the menace of nepotism, favouritism, political partisanship in political appointments.
