Reforming bureaucracy

The Government is considering stepping up lateral movement of experienced officers from various Central and State services at the level of joint secretary to tide over the shortfall of experienced IAS officers eligible to be appointed to senior positions. This welcome move will give opportunity to those in specialised services to move into mainstream administration and bring their domain expertise in specific issues into policymaking and governance. It will also reverse some of the appropriation of top positions by the IAS lobby from non-IAS services over the last few decades. The IAS-dominated top bureaucracy must wholeheartedly support this move. However, simply increasing the body count is not enough — capability and skills, particularly in the middle-to-top echelons of the bureaucracy, have to be improved urgently. Direct hires of experienced professionals, particularly from the private sector, as is the practice in many developed nations such as the US, the UK and in Europe, is also required, if governance delivery is to meet the needs of a complex and rapidly evolving economy.

Attracting lateral movement from other services to fill vacancies in the bureaucracy is far easier than attracting talent from the private sector. This is not just because the remuneration is not competitive, but also because of the vast difference in working conditions. Skilled professionals expect a certain degree of operational freedom, which the current bureaucratic style of functioning of government, as well as political interference, militates against.

The move to seek lateral movement is aimed at filling vacancies caused by a shortfall of eligible IAS officers. But India needs to move beyond such short-term fixes and adopt a policy that actively seeks the best talent for various positions, whether such talent is to be found within or outside the current bureaucratic system. To start with, the Government could define either a certain number or certain specified positions in the administrative structure to be filled by lateral hires, and appointments to such positions should be widely advertised to attract the best. The Government must also put in place a system to review and suitably reward outstanding performance of such appointees to attract more such talent. A wider pool, and diversity of experiences and domain expertise, together can ensure that policies have a better connect with ground realities, and get implemented more efficiently. Above all, both the bureaucracy and the political class need to recognise that the time for old style governance — where policymaking is mostly in the domain of the administrative structure that was created by the British to govern India — is no longer either effective or efficient. It might be time to revisit the concept of a unified civil service — a one-size-fits-all bureaucracy, recruited through a dated competitive examination system. New courses demand new horses.

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