कथन (A): राज्य में सत्ता के साधन के रूप में नौकरशाही सार्वजनिक मामलों का प्रबंधन इस प्रकार करती है कि वह अपनी प्रशासनिक भूमिका को बनाए रख सके। कारण (R): नौकरशाही किसी दी गई राजनीतिक व्यवस्था के परिचालन कार्यों को बनाए रखने और निष्पादित करने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाती है।

The Indian bureaucracy has often been criticized for being rigid and excessively rule-bound, leading to delays in service delivery. Which concept best describes this phenomenon?

Assertion (A): Max Weber's Bureaucratic School introduced selection and promotion of employees based on qualifications and technical competence rather than personal relationships. Reason (R): Weber argued that impersonal, objective decision-making based on technical merit would ensure fairness, consistency, and predictability in large organisations, producing the stability that personal-relationship-based systems could not guarantee.