Cost Effectiveness and All That

S K Bhattacharyya Performance Budgeting by A Premchand; Academic Books, Bombay; 1969; pp 150; Rs 18.50.
ONE of the most heartening developments in recent years has been the introduction of the cost effectiveness concept in Government budgeting. It is true that some form of cost effectiveness was introduced in the US Government accounting system even prior to the induction of Robert McNamara by Kennedy from Detroit to Washington. It is, however, valid to hold that McNamara is perhaps the person who gave this new system a conceptual basis and provided a sense of direction and thrust which were in line with his earlier reputation as a whiz kid, who made the transition from a professor of Harvard Business School to President of Ford Motors to Secretary of Defence, with equal ease. In introducing performance budgeting, which is built around the concept of cost effectiveness, McNamara stepped on quite a few corns, particularly those of his Chiefs of Staff who were somewhat unaccustomed to being told by a mere civilian what was good for them. Added to these injuries were insults by way of questions which McNamara constantly raised at the Pentagon