Role of bureaucracy in development:

(i) Bureaucracy has become a universal phenomenon. It is a prerequisite of modernization of every society. Most developing countries are engaged in the process of nation building and bringing about rapid socio-economic development, i.e. providing social services such as health, education, infrastructure like roads, electricity, productive activities in agriculture, industry, etc.

(ii) The complex of such formidable activities connected with the development enterprise is essentially the government's responsibility.Here,public administration becomes the key agency of development.Bureaucracy can immensely contribute to development by serving as an adviser,as an inventor,and a decision-maker.

(iii) It can vitalize administration by building a social environment emphasising responsibility by creating incentives,by encouraging healthy competition and self development,by organising institutional management under competent and progressive leadership and by delegating authority to lower levels for maximising development.

(iv) Bureaucracy constitutes the apparatus and mechanism through which the state realises its purposes.It has been rightly said that a country's life is largely shaped by the quality of administration.A plan can succeed only if its administrative implications have been worked out in detail.

(v) A high degree of bureaucratic competence is essential to push through speedy development measures. In most developing countries the problem is not the inability of the governments to devise rational programmes for development, but their incapacity to carry them out.