Education and lethargy can be blamed yo an extent but its mainly the apathy and the chill attitude that these people have towards their work.
I have seen highly educated bureaucrats utilizing their knowledge and experience just to delay things as it will make them do more work in the future. They just act as a filter and use their brains so as to prove that they know stuff and knkw their job. They are experts in finding faults in any file, project or proposal put to them but are incapable or not willing to give you solutions. They will never yield to reasoning or accept any modus operandi / solution other than what they have in their mind. The very few that do work are mocked, made fun off, loaded with work and when some work done by them gets stuck or brings the department in negative lime light then this minority is bashed, insulted and humiliated constantly and unrelentingly. Hence over time majority of these few people give into pressure.
Unfortunately in 90% of the cases you can not bypass these individuals, they can not be removed either as they are either shielded by individuals with similar agendas and interests, have strong connections, unions or are political appointments. In short they have no fear to being held accountable.
So most of the common people sccumb to pressure and turn to coaxing, pleading and buttering these people making them more pompous, glorified, bloated with gas and ultimately over time they become a pharoah.
It is the above that we are up against. These people are like a pack of hyenas who habe spread like an epedemic and that need to be taken down in each and every office. It won't be done in one tenure and wont be possible without gud management at top who have proper laws supporting them