COMMENTARY

However, certain facts may help us Has the IAS Failed the Nation? assess the situation more objectively. One, in the past too, experts had been An Insider’s View inducted at senior positions in govern- ment, generally without any advertise- ment. Many of them, such as Manmohan Naresh Chandra Saxena Singh, Bimal Jalan, Lovraj Kumar, Vijay Kelkar, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Rakesh The decision to recruit experts he Government of India (GoI) has Mohan, Jairam Ramesh, and Arvind from the open market in certain decided to recruit 10 outstanding Subramanian made a very good impact and contributed substantially in senior departments at the level of joint Tindividuals from the open market with expertise in the areas of (i) revenue; positions. The fact that some of them secretaries is not enough to (ii) fi nancial services; (iii) economic later joined the ruling party and served radically professionalise the civil affairs; (iv) agriculture, cooperation and as ministers did not invite criticism of service. Internal specialisation farmers’ welfare; (v) road transport and their past contribution when they served highways; (vi) shipping; (vii) environment, as joint secretary or secretary. Nor was must be promoted by insisting forests and climate change; (viii) new the regime criticised for recruiting party- on stable tenure in the states so and renewable energy; (ix) civil avia- friendly professionals. Russi Mody from that there is incentive for the tion; and (x) commerce. Their initial app- the Tata Group headed Air India back in Indian Administrative Service ointment would be for three years and 1993 and, in 2002, former Bombay Sub- exten dable up to fi ve years depending urban Electric Supply (BSES) Chairperson offi cers to acquire expertise in upon their performance. They would and Managing Director (CMD) R V Shahi their chosen sectors. Also, the work at the level of the joint secretary, a was made the power secretary for fi ve IAS offi cers should take the entry post normally occupied by the Indian years. As a general rule, scientifi c minis- of the outsiders as a challenge, Administrative Service (IAS) or central tries such as those of space or atomic service offi cers. It is a crucial level of energy are less hierarchically organised because if they do not improve senior management in the GoI adminis- and have resorted to lateral entry more their performance, there could tration, as joint secretaries lead policy- liberally. Thus, the experiment of induc- be repetition of such recruitment making, design programmes, and monitor ting outsiders in government is not new. every year. their implementation. The second Administrative Reforms Com- This initiative to prefer specialists over mission too had recommended lateral career bureaucrats has been hailed as a entry at senior positions. It is likely that bold and radical step by some who argue some of the joint secretaries who would that it would bring in fresh and vibrant be recruited through the new process ideas, expose the top civil service to are already working as consultants in competition, and promote better policy the same ministry. formulation based on expert domain Two, only 10 positions have been knowledge. On the other hand, many have advertised as against a total strength of condemned the bypassing of the Union about 400 joint secretaries in the central Public Service Commission (UPSC) as an government. This should not cause any attempt to facilitate the backdoor entry insecurity in the minds of UPSC-recruited of people committed to the present gov- career bureaucrats that it would mini- ernment’s ideology, or recruit empl oy ees mise their scope for promotion. working for those industrialists who are Three, there is an acute shortage of close to the ruling party. middle-level IAS offi cers with 18 to 25 years of seniority, as the annual recruitment to Game Changer? IAS A shorter and abridged version of this note was the in the 1990s was curtailed to just published in the National Herald on 17 June It is diffi cult at this stage to guess the about 60 to 70 as against the present re- 2018 titled “The IAS Is Not Really Threatened.” intention of the government; whether this cruitment of about 180 per batch. This Naresh Chandra Saxena (naresh.saxena@ decision is targeted at roping in the best was done under an illusion that the eco- gmail.com) was posted at the IAS academy talent from outside to nurture the civil nomic liberalisation would vastly reduce for eight years and trained several batches services, or to stifl e the independence of the need for central staffi ng. However, of the IAS. He retired as secretary, Planning the bureaucracy by making it subordinate the reverse happened, as with enhanced Commission in 2002. to the ideologues of the ruling party. revenues GoI expanded its role not

14 JUNE 23, 2018 vol lIiI no 25 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY only in the social sector, such as for service that can anticipate emerging offi cers before political masters is the the anti-poverty programmes, educa- challenges and ensure that potential total lack of any market value and lack tion, health, and tribal welfare, but also strategies are informed by better under- of alternative employment potential.1 in many new emerging sectors such as standing of future contexts. It must also Beyond government, they have no fu- telecommunications, information tech- learn to empower people and be able to ture, because their talents are so few. nology, climate change, and road trans- work with them, as traditional vertical Most IAS offi cers, thus, end up as dead port. Due to the overall shortage, most acc ounta bility systems can act as a major wood within a few years of joining the states are unwilling to release senior impediment to working across boundaries service and their genius lies only in ma- IAS offi cers for central deputation, lead- (O’Flynn et al 2011). nipulation and jockeying for positions ing to a bizarre situation where a rail- Despite initial competence and enthu- within the government. way traffi c offi cer works as joint secre- siasm, the hard reality is that many civil This service is primarily responsible tary, health, and an ordnance service servants in the course of the 30 years of for India’s failure to achieve Millennium employee fi nds himself in the Ministry their career lose much of their dynamism Development Goals (MDGs) in hunger, of Tribal Affairs! and innovativeness, and end up as mere health, malnutrition, sanitation, and pen-pushers and cynics, with no faith in gender, as most IAS offi cers can neither IAS Performance their own contribution to public welfare. design effective programmes nor can Temporary shortages apart, the larger A high degree of professionalism ought they implement them with accountabi- issue is: Have the IAS offi cers been found to be the dominant characteristic of a lity. Some decades ago, one used to com- defi cient in their role as policy advisers? modern bureaucracy. The fatal failing of pare India with China and Sri Lanka, Do these offi cers possess the necessary the Indian bureaucracy has been its low but these countries have left India far domain knowledge so essential for effec- level of professional competence. The behind as far as development goals are tive policymaking and delivery? Histori- IAS offi cer spends more than half of their concerned. On social indicators, India cally, the IAS was needed because India tenure on policy desks where domain unfortunately does worse than countries is a union of states, has a federal system, knowledge is a vital prerequisite. How- even poorer than India, like Bangladesh with all essential subjects with which ever, quick transfers from one post to the and Vietnam (Table 1). the people are concerned, such as educa- other in many states dampens the desire tion, health, agriculture, water, housing, to learn. In Uttar Pradesh (UP) the aver- Credible Reporting and police, being dealt with at the state age tenure of an IAS offi cer in the last 10 Though the IAS is failing on many fronts, level, but largely supervised and funded years is said to be as low as six months. here one would like to concentrate only by the centre. A common civil service In the Indian Police Service (IPS) it is on two issues that are exclusively under not only facilitates coordination, but also even lower, leading to the wisecrack that its domain: monitoring of programmes helps in national integration as almost “if we are posted for weeks all we can do and fl ow of funds. half the IAS cadre in each state consists of is to collect our weekly bribes.” At present, offi cials at all levels spend outsiders. A rigorous process of recruit- With this environment prevailing in a great deal of time in collecting and ment for the higher civil services ensures many states, there is no incentive for a submitting information, but these are that the best talent available in society young civil servant to acquire knowl- not used for taking corrective and reme- joins the civil service in India. edge or improve their skills. There is, dial action or for analysis, but only for A capable public service is essential thus, an exponential growth in both forwarding to a higher level, or for ans- for creating a favourable investment their ignorance and their arrogance. It is wering Parliament/assembly questions. climate and facilitating people’s partici- said that in the house of an IAS offi cer Moreover, outcomes are hardly measured pation in economic life. As countries bec- one would fi nd only three books: the rail- and the system gets away with infl ated ome more globalised, governments face way timetable, because they are always reporting. Pratham, a voluntary organi- incre asingly complex and cross-cutting being shunted from one post to the other, sation, has evolved a simple test in edu- issues, such as economic volatility, climate a current affairs magazine because that cation at a low cost, which judges the change and migration. The wide use is their level of interest, and of course, extent of learning in primary schools. of the internet has made citizens more the civil list that describes the service Their fi ndings show that the actual aware and impatient, puting public hierarchy! An important factor that learning levels of students are abysmally servants under greater public scrutiny. contributes to the surrender of senior low and declining. However, the states Against this backdrop, public service de- Table 1: India and Other Developing Countries on MDGs livery has acquired new dimensions as Indicators India Bangladesh Vietnam governments need to respond not only Infant mortality rate 1990 88 100 37 to changes in the global environment, 2016 35 28 17 but also to the demands of an active citi- Underweight stunted children under five years 38 35 25 Rural population with adequate sanitation 40 92 79 zenry. Formulating integrated policies Attendance ratio of girls to boys in secondary school (net) (%) 83 116 93 and their effective implementation would Total fertility rate (TFR) 2.3 2.1 2.0 require an adaptable and effi cient public Source: UNICEF (2017).

Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 23, 2018 vol lIiI no 25 15 COMMENTARY neither accept Pratham’s fi ndings nor the number of missing toilets was more the state level so that utilisation of funds monitor quality of learning themselves. than 60%.2 improves, timely payments are made to There is great pressure on the fi eld the staff, and utilisation reports are sent staff to spend the allotted funds, but not Flow of Funds to the GoI in time without delay. in terms of long-term results, because Many state governments, especially the those are not monitored. Thus, fi nancial poor ones, are neither able to draw their The Inverted Pyramid planning is divorced from physical plan- entitled funds from the GoI, nor are they Coming back to the issue of lateral entry, ning. Equally, state governments do not able to release these to the districts/villag- the fear that the outsider joint secretary discourage reporting of infl ated fi gures es in time, with the result that the GoI is would be ideologically inclined to the from the districts, which again renders often constrained to divert the unclaimed present regime needs to be judged in monitoring ineffective. As data are funds to better-performing states. The the context of the mushrooming growth often not verifi ed or collected through reason for poor performance by Bihar, Odi- of “committed” bureaucracy (I would independent sources, no action is taken sha, UP, and Assam is often due to the place their number as between 25% and against offi cers indulging in bogus widespread shortage of staff at all levels, 50% of the total, depending upon the reporting. The practice is so widespread adversely affecting implementation and state) that has taken place over the dec- in all the states, presumably with the supervision of pro gram m es. Among the ades for a variety of reasons. The most connivance of senior offi cers, that the states, the record of Bihar is atrocious in important of these reasons being cut- overall percentage of severely malnouri- using central funds. In the Accelerated throat competition that exists in the IAS shed (grade III and IV) children in the Rural Water Supply Progra mme alone, it for important positions both at the state 0–3 age group according to the data rea- lost about `540 crore of central assistance and central levels. ching GoI from the states is only 2%, as during 1994–2005. Even salaries were not Due to the control that the IAS lobby against 9.4% reported by United Nations paid on time in Bihar in the pre-Nitish exerts on the system, a large number of Children’s Fund (Unicef) in its survey. Kumar (currently the chief minister of redundant posts in the super-time and The fi eld offi cials are, thus, able to escape the state) era. An evaluation of the Inte- superior scales have been created to from any sense of acco u n tability for red- grated Child Development Services ensure them quick promotions. Often a ucing malnutrition. Figures from some (ICDS) in Bihar in 2007 by Unicef senior post has been split, thus diluting states show their children to be as heal- showed that only less than 10% of an- and dimini shing the scale of responsi- thy as in Denmark and Sweden! (Table 2) ganwadi workers (AWWs) received their bilities attached with the post. For in- UP, Table 2: Reporting of Severely Malnourished honorarium regularly; most receive it stance, in against the post of one Children in 2013–14 (%) only twice in a year rather than mon- chief secretary, there are 18 offi cers now State Government UNICEF thly. Another study by UNICEF showed in equivalent but far less important posts Andhra Pradesh 0.8 4.7 that only 18% of offi cials in Jharkhand drawing the same salary. This inverted Gujarat 0.8 10.1 working at the grass-roots level are paid pyramid (too many people at the top and Jharkhand 0.5 16.0 their salaries on time (Saxena 2017). too few in the middle and lower rungs) Odisha 1.4 11.0 Uttar Pradesh 0.8 12.9 It is also observed that the contractual has apparently been created to avoid de- West Bengal 0.7 8.9 staff in centrally sponsored schemes, such moralisation due to stagnation, but the India 2.1 9.4 as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), net result has been just the opposite. Source: UNICEF (2014). ICDS and National Health Mission do not First, it leads to cut-throat competition One district head, when confronted receive their emoluments regularly. For within the service to grab the important with this kind of bogus fi gures, told me instance, 39% of contract teachers received slots. The old camaraderie has vanished. that reporting correct data is “a high- their monthly salaries with a delay of Instances are not lacking when IAS offi c- risk and low-reward activity”! Manmo- three months and more (AI 2015). Even ers wanting plum jobs have gone to the han Singh as Prime Minister called the electronic transfers take months with politicians denigrating their competi- government’s performance in combat- the result that in the mid-day meals pro- tors. Second, this no-holds-barred com- ing malnutrition a “national shame,” gramme ground staff such as cooks and petition is then exploited by politicians but he was not able to persuade the helpers are not paid for months, the in playing up one against the other, lead- state bureaucracy to accept that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) withholds ing to offi cers becoming more pliable. problem exists. supply of grain, and mid-day meals are The lure of after-retirement sinecures The sad story of fudging of data by served only for 60%–70% of the work- further increases the number of those the fi eld staff got a great deal of publi- ing days in some states. Similar delays who would be willing to crawl when city when the census report in 2011 take place in supply of textbooks in SSA, asked to bend. brought forth the startling revelation fi lling up of vacancies (esp ecially in the However, getting only 10 joint secre- that about 3.5 crore rural toilets built remote and tribal areas), capital works, taries from the open market is not enough in the last 10 years at the household lev- funds for maintenance, etc. Empirical to radically professionalise the civil el were missing. In some states, like studies are needed to suggest what changes service. The government needs to pro- Madhya Pradesh, UP and Tamil Nadu, are needed in fi nancial procedures at mote internal specialisation by insisting

16 JUNE 23, 2018 vol lIiI no 25 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY on stable tenure in the states so that their intellectual skills. The IAS offi cers notes there is incentive for the IAS to acquire should take the entry of 10 outsiders as a 1 Of late, some senior offi cers are being hired by expertise in their chosen sectors. An challenge because if they do not improve the private sector, not so much for their profes- IAS sionalism, but for their ability to infl uence the offi cer who has seen the plight of their performance, there could be repe- government in favour of the hiring company. patients at the district level and has also tition of such recruitment every year. 2 https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover- worked in the state medical department The present proposal would not have story/story/20141013-clean-india-modi-govt-toil- would be a far more effective joint secre- attracted adverse criticism had the UPSC ets-missing-defunct-india-805413- 2014-10-02. tary in the Ministry of Health and Fami- been involved in the recruitment process. References ly Welfare than a doctor with specialisa- One can only hope that the selection com- tion in just one narrow subject. But, it is mittee set up by the GoI would be impar- AI (2015): Fund Tracking Survey (PAISA), Account- ability Initiative, http://cprindia.org/sites/de- counterproductive to fi ll up senior posi- tial, objective and transparent, and puts fault/fi les/policy-briefs/SSA.pdf. tions with career civil servants who do up the curriculum vitae of selected can- O’Flynn, J L, D A Blackman and J Halligan (2011): not have previous experience in that didates online to establish their credibility. Working across Boundaries: Barriers, Enablers, broad fi eld. Therefore, after the fi rst 10 Summing up, one welcomes 10 experts Tensions and Puzzles, http://ssrn.com/abstract =1927666. IAS years of service, each offi cer should from the open market, but profession- Saxena, Naresh Chandra (2017): Governance and be encouraged to specialise in one or alising the rest of the 390 joint secretar- Inclusive Development in India, Germany: Lambert two chosen sectors by not only giving ies requires greater attention. This needs Academic Publishing. UNICEF (2007): Evaluation of ICDS in Bihar, Patna. them long tenures, but even permitting wider administrative reforms by ad- — (2014): Rapid Survey on Children, 2013–14, them to join academic or research or- dressing issues of governance at the New Delhi. ganisations where they could improve state and district levels. — (2017): The State of World’s Children, New York.

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