‘Lateral entry’ into bureaucracy: reason, process and the controversy
- NITI Aayog, in its three-year Action Agenda, and the Sectoral Group of Secretaries (SGoS) on Governance in its report has recommended the induction of personnel at middle and senior management levels in the central government.
- The ‘lateral entrants’ would be part of the central secretariat which in the normal course has only career bureaucrats from the All India Services/ Central Civil Services.
- In 2018, the government had decided to appoint experts from outside the government to 10 positions of Joint Secretary in different Ministries/Departments and 40 positions at the level of Deputy Secretary/Director.
Why Indian Bureaucracy requires Lateral Entry?
- High number of posts is vacant in Bureaucracy: In a developing economy, it is required to have a pool of good mid-to-senior level officers who understand and value action, outcome, and evaluation of policies.
- There is an acute shortage of middle-level IAS officers with 18 to 25 years of seniority, as the annual recruitment to the IAS in the 1990s was curtailed to just about 60-70 as against the present recruitment of about 180 per batch.
- Low level of Professional Competence in Bureaucracy: Once a young civil servant joins the service, he/she is shuffled among various departments allowing him/her no time to acquire expertise in any field.
- Lack of Professionalism in certain governmental departments: The scientific ministries, such as space or atomic energy, are less hierarchically organised and have allowed lateral entry of professionals more liberally.
- The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers have little expertise in subjects like civil aviation, defence, coal, shipping, etc., as the states where the IAS officers spend most of their early career do not deal with these subjects.
- IAS officers too lack the necessary domain knowledge: It is primarily responsible for India’s failure in achieving millennium development goals (MDG) goals in hunger, health, malnutrition, sanitation, and gender, as most IAS officers can neither design effective programmes nor can implement them with accountability.
- Presence of Inverted Pyramid in Bureaucratic Structure: In Uttar Pradesh against the post of one chief secretary, there are 18 officers now in equivalent but far less important posts drawing the same salary.
- The inverted pyramid (too many people at the top and too few in the middle and lower rungs) has apparently been created to avoid demoralisation due to stagnation, which results in:
- Cutthroat competition within the service to grab the important slots; and
- No-holds-barred competition is exploited by politicians in pitting one against the other leading to officers becoming more pliable.
Why Indian Bureaucracy is worst in Asia?
- Deficiency in the delivery of public services: The corruption is mainly a byproduct of a system that does not deliver and when government employs less people than are required, it is a given that governance will suffer.
- Lack of domain expertise in the government: The secretaries exercising vast powers and framing policies generally have no domain expertise.
- Hierarchical system of bureaucracy: The young officers are moulded to be satisfied with the current state of affairs.
- Any urge to innovate and change the system is generally curbed by the time they have spent a decade or so in service.
Arguments in favour of Lateral Entry into Bureaucracy
- Bringing in fresh talent and augmenting availability of manpower: The experts have told that Government has, from time to time, appointed some prominent persons for specific assignments in government.
- Recruitment of Field Specific Experts: The Second Administrative Reforms Commission too had recommended lateral entry at senior positions.
- It is likely that some of the joint secretaries who would be recruited through the new process are already working as consultants in the same ministry.
- Number of Appointments is kept low against large number of posts: The lateral entry recruitment should not cause any insecurity in the minds of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)-recruited career bureaucrats that it would minimise their scope for promotion.
- Sharpen decision-making and delivery of services: The recruitment of domain specialists, in the 40-55 age group, will bring sharpness and expertise to the bureaucracy.
Arguments against Lateral Entry into Bureaucracy
- No Reservation for Marginalised Community: The groups representing SCs, STs and OBCs have protested the fact that there is no reservation in lateral entry appointments.
- Number of appointees is insignificant to bridge the gap: The government has hired just nine officers as joint secretaries and intends to appoint 30 more as directors and joint secretaries as of now.
- But the IAS and the Indian Police Service (IPS) have a combined shortage of 2,418 officers.
- Requirement of more resources for lateral entrants: The laterally hired bureaucrats will need more training and support to contribute effectively in policymaking.
- The domain experts taken in via lateral entry lack policymaking exposure and administrative knowledge to effect real change and their three-year contract is too short a time to get used to the system.
- Administration needs anonymity: Governance is not contractual work but a perennial commitment to the country.
- The hiring of few field experts will not lead to reforms in governance.
- Fear of similar ideology of lateral entrant and regime: It is feared that the outsider joint secretary would be ideologically inclined to the present regime needs to be judged in the context of mushrooming growth of “committed” bureaucracy.
- Practical Experience is more efficient: An IAS officer who has seen the plight of patients at the district level and has also worked in the state medical department would be a far more effective joint secretary than a doctor with specialisation in just one narrow subject.
How Lateral Entry into Bureaucracy can become successful?
- Increase in number of recruitments under lateral entry: The government must start with at least 100 people and then increase their strength to around 10% of the sanctioned posts.
- It will ensure that the bureaucracy gets more domain expertise along with fresh thinking while retaining its basic character.
- Transparent selection process for lateral entrants: The criterion for selection should be properly determined and experts brought in for each domain.
- There should be at least one interview with the shortlisted candidates that is telecast to the public which would ensure the selected candidates are subjected to public scrutiny.
- Lateral Entry should be ingrained in India’s Public Service: It is a welcome step as long as the process is transparent, merit-based and not done based on political connections.
- The selection process must be transparent and involve an autonomous body like the UPSC to minimize the risk of political considerations trumping merit.
Road ahead
- A high degree of professionalism ought to be the dominant characteristic of a modern bureaucracy because the IAS officer spends more than half of his tenure on policy desks where domain knowledge is a vital prerequisite.
- The government needs to promote internal specialisation by insisting on stable tenure in the states, so that there is an incentive for the IAS to acquire expertise in their chosen sectors.
- In a government that lacks such specialised knowledge and experience, the delivery of services cannot cope with the rising aspirations of citizens for better governance and greater accountability and transparency.
- It is necessary to have specialists when it comes to decision-making in governmentand executing policies but depending entirely on outside consultants is not desirable.
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