An Interview with Mr. Ashok Lavasa

Former VP ABD | Former Election Commissioner | Former Secretary Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Ministry of Civil Aviation

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Mr. Ashok Lavasa served as an Election Commissioner of India and held key leadership roles in the Government of India, including Union Secretary in the Ministries of Finance; Environment, Forests and Climate Change; and Civil Aviation. He also served as special secretary in the Ministry of Power, and as joint secretary in both the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Department of Economic Affairs.

Internationally, Mr. Lavasa has served as Vice President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Over a career spanning four decades, he also held senior positions in the Government of Haryana, including Principal Secretary and Financial Commissioner for Renewable Energy and Power. Earlier, he served as managing director of Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation and the Haryana Tourism Corporation. Prior to that he was Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate in the districts of Jind and Gurgaon.

In this conversation with Mr. Ashok Lavasa, The Policy Edge team explores how India’s institutions manage dissent, the challenges of inter-ministerial coordination, the country’s role in shaping multilateral governance, and the patterns that emerge across different layers of administration and development.

During your tenure at the Election Commission, you dealt with complex questions of procedure, interpretation, and institutional process, including internal dissent or principled difference of opinion. In your view, how can such institutions retain cohesion while accommodating principled disagreement?

The Election Commission is fully empowered by the Constitution, with the core mandate to prepare electoral rolls and conduct elections. Since the 1990s, it has functioned as a multi-member body. Three members first try to reach consensus; if that is not possible, the majority view prevails. This is a practical safeguard against stalemate. In practice, most decisions are taken unanimously.

That said, differences do arise. A long-debated question is whether dissenting views should be formally recorded. Even today, how best to accommodate differences in decision-making remains an evolving issue. In fact, there are two levels of diversity in opinion: one within the Commission itself among the members, and another in how different viewpoints of outsiders are incorporated into the decisions taken by the Commission. Transparency helps resolve both. The more open the institution, the easier it is to build consensus.

The Commission has always consulted widely – with government, political parties, civil society, and above all the people of India. Alongside, it relies on well-established procedures that are predictable and trustworthy. That is how cohesion is maintained. However, in any multi member body, it is important to record dissenting opinions in order to respect the opinion of a peer and also as a record for the people and history.

You have worked across finance, environment, civil aviation, and home affairs. What did these transitions reveal to you about the strengths and bottlenecks of India’s administrative machinery? If you could redesign one aspect of inter-ministerial coordination, what would it be? 

The strength of the Indian administration has been its rule-based functioning and openness to receiving advice from people. As far as the civil services itself is concerned, one of the principal responsibilities is to render free and frank professional advice in policymaking. And because the civil servants - whether they are from the IAS or IPS, or Income Tax, or any other department - come from different backgrounds, they bring different professional competence, which enriches decision-making if they are properly consulted and are able to speak freely.

We also have the advantage of an elected political executive. They have a political agenda, representing ground realities and aspirations of the people. This makes the Indian system a good blend of professional caliber meeting political aspirations -- the two coming together to serve the people of the country. But in its operation there can be discrepancies, which we also witness.

Another big strength of the Indian administration is the permanent bureaucracy. Its responsibilities are twofold: to offer advice, and to execute government policies. The Indian bureaucracy has shown efficiency in executing programmes, and this capacity has improved over time with additional knowledge and new technologies. Still, this is a work in progress; it doesn’t happen in the tenure of one officer. The more an institution builds one layer on another, the stronger it becomes. The emphasis, in my view, has to be on building institutions rather than making heroes out of individuals.

There is a weakness also that is clearly felt. Under British administration in India, meticulous documentation was a defining feature, done both for the successor’s benefit and to build institutional memory. Unfortunately, post-independence, this habit has weakened because of frequent transfer of officers from one place to another; and the aspiration level of some officers who want to work in selected sectors. If one doesn’t have the right motivation or has conflicting motivation, the desire to contribute to institution building is lower.

As Vice President at the ADB, your role afforded you a vantage point on how emerging economies navigate development finance and global governance. In that context, what strengths and blind spots do you think India brings to the table in shaping multilateral institutions and agendas? 

The ADB is largely oriented towards Asia and the Pacific – home to most of the world’s population and severe challenges of poverty and growth, now compounded by climate change. India, with its scale and institutional strengths, has much to contribute, and is already doing so. Our wealth of experience in dealing with infrastructure, education, health, food security, last-mile connectivity, microfinance, disadvantaged groups, or even pandemics and endemic health issues, provides useful templates for application in other parts of Asia.

Another strength lies in the administrative system India has developed over two to two-and-a-half centuries. Many countries without such strong institutions take examples from India. But it is not a one-way traffic. India also learns from others. The ADB has promoted projects that show the value of regional cooperation – for example, a wind power project located in Lao PDR that supplies electricity to Vietnam. Vietnam gets power, Lao PDR earns revenue and jobs, and both benefit from renewable resources.

There are also tangible opportunities for Indian investors. Through ADB programmes, health-service delivery companies from India have operated in countries like Uzbekistan and Indonesia.

India’s experience with public-private partnership (PPP) is another strength. For nearly three decades, PPP has shown how the government and the private sector can work together in long-gestation areas such as roads, ports, civil aviation, and telecom. The ADB has carried these lessons to countries like the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

Yet, a weakness remains. We need to utilise public resources more efficiently. There is visible scope for cutting down administrative costs, speeding up procurements, and stepping up program implementation. Too often, every rupee spent does not yield the value it should.

You have served at all levels of governance: from the district and state level in Haryana, to senior roles in key central ministries, and later at the ADB. Looking across these layers, what patterns or disconnects have you observed in the way development priorities are conceived, financed, and implemented?

One of the government’s first priorities must be to build the capacity of its systems. By “government,” I mean the entire public system: from grassroots functionaries to the highest executive, from regulatory bodies to development and research institutions funded by the state. The real question is whether the people running these systems have both the capacity and the commitment to deliver. At the village level, for instance, an Agriculture Officer, a Patwari, a Panchayat Secretary, or a Stockman Assistant each discharges an important role. Do they have the skills and motivation to serve effectively? This challenge applies across the board.

The second fundamental is optimal allocation and use of resources. The test is whether allocation addresses the core of a problem or only its periphery. In education, for example, should money go into more school buildings, or into improving teaching quality? In hospitals, should it be spent on modern facilities, or on better service delivery? Too often we focus on capital expenditure rather than functionality. A water system may be built, but whether it actually supplies water is where the plot is lost or won.

A third challenge is environmental protection. A lot remains desirable in preserving natural resources or managing the fallout of rapid urbanization. The environmental load is visible everywhere – from villages to metropolitan cities.

Finally, while growth in GDP or even per-capita income may look impressive, the deeper question is whether disparities are widening or narrowing. Some inequality will always exist, but are we creating a more balanced society or a more divided one?

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