Editorial: Increase intake of civil servants

The spirit of federalism that guides the country can be strengthened only if the States are strong and given the flexibility and freedom to take policy decisions in the interests of the people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-hyped invocation of the ‘Team India’ spirit to describe the nature of governance will be meaningful only when […]

The spirit of federalism that guides the country can be strengthened only if the States are strong and given the flexibility and freedom to take policy decisions in the interests of the people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much-hyped invocation of the ‘Team India’ spirit to describe the nature of governance will be meaningful only when the States are treated as equal partners in development. One of the areas which defines the harmony of Centre-State relations is how the civil service wing of the government is handled. Unfortunately, on this front, the NDA government has been tinkering with the powers of the States. The latest revelation by a parliamentary standing committee that over 1,500 sanctioned IAS officer posts at the State level are lying vacant reflects the level of apathy. The shortage of IAS officers is adversely impacting administrative work in many States. It was earlier thought that the problem of vacancies in the IAS officer posts was only at the Central government level but the parliamentary panel’s report makes it clear that the backlog of vacancies is impacting the State governments too. This is despite quick fixes like conferring IAS on State civil service officers or temporarily appointing other central or State cadre officers to posts reserved for IAS. There is a strong case for significantly increasing the annual intake to fill the sanctioned posts. The last review of IAS cadre strengths in 2012 had fixed the annual intake at 180 officers. However, in tune with the growing administrative needs, this number needs to go up drastically.

The policy of lateral entry to infuse professionalism into the bureaucracy, though commendable, did not make much headway. The lateral entrants have been facing the ‘outsider’ tag, impacting their morale and confidence. Traditionally, the bureaucracy in India is designed to function in a top-down, hierarchical and a silo-driven structure, which stifles new ideas. Moreover, civil services does not incentivise domain specialisation. It is never an easy task to reform the bureaucracy, particularly when it comes to bringing in experts from the private sector at senior levels of the administration. It is no surprise that the idea of lateral entry had faced resistance from the IAS lobby. It remains to be seen how far “Mission Karmayogi”, the recent initiative of the Centre, would be successful in capacity building and promoting professionalism. The amendments to the rules pertaining to the deputation of IAS officers to the Centre have justifiably drawn flak from the States. The proposed changes are designed to allow the Centre to exercise greater control over the civil servants. According to the proposed amendment, an officer whom the union government wishes to put on deputation would “stand relieved” from his or her respective cadre within a stipulated time, irrespective of that state government’s consent. Understandably, many States are opposed to the new rules.

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