A politician and a bureaucrat were the only two persons who spoke at a function to commemorate 13 years of the ruling Delhi government on Tuesday.

Usually, a politician is expected to be a better orator. But not in this case.

While Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, as expected, recounted her achievements and made some more promises to people, chief secretary P K Tripathi came out with high honours in his short and evocative speech, bereft of any rhetoric and unwanted promises, while egging his men to further improve the public delivery system.

As proof of sincerity of his words, Tripathi’s speech was frequently interrupted by loud claps from the top echelons of Delhi’s bureaucracy present at the function.

Tripathi began by saying that Delhi is the Capital and hence, it should set an example for the rest of the country while keeping in mind the sensitivity of national and international opinion.

Dwelling on the problem of mass migration to the city, Tripathi drew an example from Biology. “Cities are like living organisms. The growth of each cell leads to the growth of the body. The ailment in any cell or part will pain the entire body,” said Tripathi, stressing on upliftment of all sections of the people.

He soon came to the point of what the role of bureaucracy should be in such a scenario — to provide instant services to people.

“Any government department that has a public interface — health, public distribution system, among others, should have a strong and friendly front-end administration. People should get hassle-free service,” said Tripathi.

Reminding bureaucrats about ‘inspection’ as the cardinal principle of governance, Tripathi asked his officers to make frequent field inspections to set the house in order.

“Inspections are important. I ask my colleagues to carry out field inspections and junior staffers should come on time. If they don’t, the public will suffer. Don’t let that happen,” he said.

Referring to the problem of delay in projects, he also demanded frequent monitoring of projects.

“Bureaucracy and technocracy have to monitor projects constantly and see that they are not delayed. Timely completion is important and you should see that it happens,” said Tripathi. He added that Dikshit is the “most non-interfering” chief minister in the country.