Angst over IAS transfers is missing the point
The union government’s unilateral actions over the sharing of all India service officers have shaken the federal balance. Although a more serious damage to federalism has been occurring because states, municipalities and panchayats across the country have not been able to impart required services due to administrative incapacity.
Bureaucracy
- Permanent executive: Bureaucracy is the backbone of administrative machinery of the country which forms the permanent executive branch of the government.
- Historical perspective: India being the land of many ancient civilizations has developed the art and science of public administration in the early years which can be traced back to manuscripts of Arthashastra by Kautilya,
- Commissions during British rule: The commissions set up in reforming the public services from the Macaulay Committee to the Islington Committee to the Lee Commission have suggested the statutory public service commission to be brought into force.
- The first Indian to clear the ICS exam was Satyendranath Tagore in 1864.
- Constitution Assembly Debates: There were detailed discussions and arguments about the continuity, role and loyalty of Indian civil servants during the constituent assembly debates.
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel played a significant role and almost single-handedly was responsible for setting up the civil services in independent India and is therefore rightly called the iron man of India.
Indian Constitution
- Article 310, 311 & 312 in the Constitution pertain to the services under the union and state.
- Article 310: it provides that civil servants of the union and all India services are to be appointed by the President of India and civil servants of the states are to be appointed by the governor of the state. They continue to hold their office as per the pleasure of the president and governor respectively providing them the security of tenure.
- Article 311: it mentions the procedures and conditions for removal, dismissal from the service and reduction in rank thereby ensuring the due process of law.
- It ensures protection of civil servants from political interference and undue harassment.
- Article 312: it lays down the all India services of India. According to it, the Parliament may by law provide for creation of one or more all India services if Rajya Sabha has declared by resolution supported by not less than two thirds of the members present and voting.
- Article 315 to 323: The article deals with setting up of the union state service commission as well as State Public service commission.
The concerns affecting Indian civil services are:
- Poor capacity building.
- Inefficient incentive systems which do not appreciate upright and outstanding civil servants.
- Outmoded rules and procedure restricting the civil servant from effective performance.
- Systematic inconsistencies and promotion and empanelment.
- Lack of adequate transparency and accountability procedures. Also, there is no safety net for whistleblowers.
- Arbitrary transverse: insecurity in tenures impedes institutionalization.
- Political interference and administrative accession.
- Dominance of elite services and promotions, local location and assignments.
Structural issues
- Generalist officers versus specialist officers: civil services are conceived primarily to deliver the core functions of the state like implementation of government schemes, maintenance of law and order.
- Changing role of state: However, the role of the state has changed with changing needs with the advent of globalization and economic reforms.
- Technological revolution: New challenges have come up due to technological evolution like cyber security. Thus, there is a higher demand of specialist officers for domain knowledge at the policy level.
- Inadequate representation of existing services:Also there have been concerns regarding inadequate representation and opportunities for existing specialist services like Indian economic service, Indian statistical service etc.
MISSION KARAMYOGI
- The government has announced a new comprehensive civil services reform program aimed at better service delivery to the public.
- The National Architecture for Civil Services Capacity Building, called Mission Karamyogi, is aimed to transform the capacity building operators at the individual, institutional and process levels at the government of India.
- The initiative targets 46 million central government employees and would be based on three pillars of governance, performance and accountability.
- Under the mission Karmayogi program the civil servants would be trained to be more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology enabled.
- The fundamental focus of the reform is the creation of citizen centric civil service capable of creating and delivering services conducive to the economic growth and public welfare.
- The mission shifts the focus from rule-based training to role-based training, by providing a greater thrust on behavioural change.
- The program has been so designed that it remains entrenched in Indian culture and sensibilities while drawing learning resources from the best institutions and practices from across the world.
- The programme would be delivered by setting up an integrated government online training-iGOT Karamyogi platform.
- An appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework would also be set up for performance evaluation of all the users on the platform to generate a dashboard view of key performance indicators.
- It is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class marketplace for content where carefully curated digital E-learning material would be made available.
Road ahead
- The capacity augmentation of civil servants plays a significant role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programmes as well as performing core governance functions.
- A transformational change in civil service capacity is proposed to be affected by organically linking the transformation of work culture, strengthening public institutions and adopting modern technology to build civil service capacity with the overall aim of ensuring efficient delivery of services to citizens.
- The future of the country cannot be progressive without a reformed bureaucracy.
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