Revision summary
Ethical governance is integrity, impartiality, reasons, and ownership of the file, not only speed. It is stricter than bare legality and stricter than a target met by a shortcut. Example: a clean pension pipe with a human override is ethical; a glitch that starves with no owner is not. Second ARC asked for codes and institutions, not posters. In a high-volume State, ethics at the counter is how the Republic is felt.
Model answer
Introduction
Ethical governance is the running of public power by integrity, fairness, and care for dignity, not only by speed and targets. It is good administration with a moral owner of every file.
Body
Meaning
- Ethical governance is decision and delivery that can be justified to the weakest citizen as fair, truthful, and lawful.
- It joins three tests: the officer’s character, the institution’s rules, and the Constitution’s morality.
- It is more than legality; a lawful demolition without hearing can still fail ethics.
- It is more than efficiency; a punctual bribe window is efficient and still corrupt.
- Second ARC treated ethics in governance as codes, training, and design, not as a sermon on a wall.
Elements
- Integrity: the desk is a trust, not a shop; the stamp is not a private asset.
- Impartiality: caste, party, kin, and donor do not rewrite the queue.
- Transparency and reasons: the citizen can know why a claim was refused.
- Accountability: a named officer owns the order even when a portal suggested it.
- Empathy and proportionality: force and delay are measured against harm to the poor.
- Participation: those who will live with the policy are heard before the file is locked.
Example
- Direct Benefit Transfer of a widow pension with a published grievance path is ethical governance when the money arrives without a cut and a mismatch can be heard by a human.
- The same portal fails ethics if an Aadhaar glitch starves a household and no officer will sign a manual override.
- A district that publishes tenders, recuses a conflicted officer, and records reasons on a mining lease is practising ethical governance even if the dashboard is slower than a quiet deal.
Why it matters in Uttar Pradesh administration
- High-volume welfare, police, and land files make the temptation of speed-money daily.
- Ethical governance is the only way a large State remains a Republic at the tehsil counter, not only in the Gazette.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD C[Character] --> E[Ethical governance] R[Rules audit] --> E M[Constitutional morality] --> E E --> T[Citizen trust]
Conclusion
- Ethical governance is public power used as a trust: lawful, fair, open, and owned. An example is a pension that arrives without a cut and with a human hearing when the machine says no.
Quick related
Students also ask
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While formulating public policies, a civil servant must solely focus on public welfare, and while implementing those policies, he must have foresight to infer possible unexpected consequences. Do you agree with this statement? Give arguments and justifications for your answer.
Next question in the 2023 paper (Q12). View answer →
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Is ethical governance the same as good governance?
They overlap. Good governance can be a dashboard of delivery; ethical governance asks whether that delivery respected dignity and truth.
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Can one honest officer create ethical governance?
One officer can create an ethical file. A system of ethical governance needs repeating institutions around that officer.
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More from this paper
Q1 · UPSC Mains 2023 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
What do you understand by Moral insight? How does it help in the moral situation of civil servants?
Civil Service aptitude and values
Moral insight is practical wisdom that reads a case, names values, and chooses a publicly justifiable act. Aristotle’s phronesis, Kant’s end-in-itself test, and Gandhi’s inner voice describe that sight. In service it ranks Constitution, statute, and the weakest claimant over oral pressure. The Second ARC wanted this ranking taught as a code of ethics, not left to accident. Flood lists, written dissent, and speaking orders are insight on the file.
Q2 · UPSC Mains 2023 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Examine the relevance of the following in the context of civil service: a) Spirit of service b) Courage of firm conviction.
Civil Service aptitude and values
Spirit of service treats the chair as a means to the weakest citizen’s welfare, as in Gandhi’s talisman. The Second ARC and Sevottam make that spirit a delivery and courtesy duty, not a slogan. Courage of firm conviction holds a lawful reasoned view against pressure. Nolan integrity and dissent notings are that courage in rules. Flood camps, clean rolls, and written illegal-order requests show both on the ground.
Q3 · UPSC Mains 2023 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
“A child learns values by what he observes around him.” Discuss the role of family and society in the formation of values in light of this statement.
Civil Service aptitude and values
Children copy rewarded and repeated conduct more than lectures, as Bandura’s social learning says. The family is the first school of trust, fairness, gender, and truth about money. A closed home can plant caste pride and violence as normal. Society — peers, media, market, and the visible State — confirms or corrupts that map. Speed-money culture and queue-breaking teach cynicism; clean counters and shared meals teach dignity.
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