Bureacracy : “ Waiting for Acche Din “

Disclaimer : Views are personal, Have to be read with open mind and outlook. Its not meant to malign anyone but its about bringing the undercurrents of bureaucracy to top."

‘Acche din aa gaye hain’ this is a wide spread feeling among many citizens of this country, with the election of Shri Narendra Modi as honorable PM.  I would like to seek his government attention to the problems that Indian bureaucracy is facing. Media always criticizes bureaucracy by referring to red-tapism, Inertia, poor public service delivery, slow decision making and policy paralysis prevalent in bureaucracy. But media never had tried to find out the inherent problems existing in the bureaucracy which is responsible for poor delivery and impacting the working of Indian bureaucracy as a whole. I would like to confine myself to group-A officers in Indian civilian bureaucracy which are selected directly through civil services examination, IES examination and IFoS examination conducted by UPSC. I am highlighting only few problems which are actually leading to the disintegration of bureaucracy, which is expected to be united and coordinated to deliver good governance.

Except IAS which is a generalist service, all other services are specialist services. Since all have passed the same exam (except IES and IFoS ), but the treatment differs with the service you have been allocated. It’s actually a tussle between IAS and non- IAS services, because in the age of specialization where we always prefer specialists, but the top posts of Indian bureaucracy are enjoyed by generalists i.e. IAS. The imposition of views in policy matters by generalist over specialists has led to the high sense of demoralization among all non-IAS specialist services. We must not reach the stage where specialist services start showing their defiance against IAS openly by not implementing their orders. Specialistion has to be respected and role of generalist has to be minimised in bureaucracy. IAS’s argument is that because of generalist ,they can able to take a holistic view and can accommodate all confronting ideas either it is political, economic or social, and specialists can’t able to envisage the holistic picture and their thinking is narrow and closed. Such arguments has no currency in today’s world of technology where one can seek any general information about anything through internet. Whereas it is difficult for generalist to learn specialist job because one has to learn special knowledge and skill, but for specialist to accommodate generalist view is very easy.

Right from start of the training, discrimination starts. Only three services – IAS, IPS and IFS are trained for Foundation course at LBSNAA, a five star academy, a symbol of Indian bureaucracy at Mussoorie, whereas other services are trained at other academies. My question here is why these three services are given more prominence over other services? Why only these services have camaraderie among themselves but not with other services? Why not even IAS, IPS and IFS are also sent to different academies along with their other services’ counterparts. It will be a good idea to send all services in all academies because this will strengthen the camaraderie among all services.

Starting pay structure of all civil services is same but after few year later , the IAS counterparts start drawing more salary due to faster promotion than other services, for same no. of  years of serving in government and there is a gap of almost 2 years in salary structure. When officers of all civil services entered at same time through same examination and then why this differential come in later year of services. This is against the principle of justice and equity. Why IAS promotions are 2 year ahead of other services ? Why other services are not promoted equally on par with IAS ?

One problem that Indian bureaucracy is facing that the specialist services is headed by IAS officers. For example currently CAG of India, who is head of the Indian audit & account services, is an IAS officer.  This is really demotivating for that servicemen who aspires for the highest post in their service, who remains loyal and spends her/his blood and toil for this service and the post which is actually due to their service, is in the hands of other service. Such practice has to be stopped. 

One more irony is that currently the head of IRS (C&CE) , i.e. chairman of CBEC is a 1977 batch IRS officer, has a status of special secretary to government of India but not secretary to government of India, and she has to report to the 1979 batch of IAS officer, who is a Revenue secretary. A person who has cleared the same exam 2 years later is senior to the person who has cleared it earlier. This is injustice with the service, just because she doesn’t belong to IAS. Government should take a cognizance of fact that head of any services for example in case of Chairman of CBEC and CBDT who are head of IRS (C&CE) and IRS (IT) respectively must be made equivalent to Cabinet secretary to government of India and  members of the board equivalent to secretary to GoI. As such practice is already there in Railway board, where Chairman, Railway board is equivalent to cabinet secretary and its members as Secretary to GoI. Similarly the secretaries to the GoI in different specialist ministries has to be granted to their servicemen. Such move will actually address three problems: 1) This will boost the morale of the all specialist services which are equally as significant as compared to IAS. 2) This will help in retaining the officers in same service, those who are still writing the civil services exam for getting into IAS. 3) This will help in reducing the vacancies created, when officers switch from one service to another.

There is also discrimination faced by other services vis-à-vis IAS in postings under central staffing scheme. Since Civil services board which is always headed by cabinet secretary, an IAS and most of whose members are also from IAS, always favor IAS officers over others for coveted postings. Government must look into this matter and there must be effective representation from other non IAS services in civil services board. Civil services board should be brought out of cabinet secretariat. Cabinet committee on appointments, should appoint chairman who can be from any services on merit basis. There must be provision of not less than 50% members from other central non-IAS services. This will end the nepotism of IAS officers for their service men in postings under central staffing scheme. 

There are certain discriminatory rules which actually discourages the entry of one service into other organization where they are eligible, but dominated by one service. For example, IRS (C&CE) & IRS(IT) officers are eligible for CBI for same post after 12 years of service, for which IPS is eligible after 8 years, because of analogus posts which are not correlated with the service years. For example:  Commissioner (officer of 1992/93 batch of IRS) is analogus to IG of police (officer of 1996 batch of IPS). Secondly, IRS officers are never posted in anti-corruption wing of CBI, because IPS doesn’t want to dilute its hegemony in that area. It’s a holy cow for them by which they can assert their dominance over other services. Thirdly, Joint directors and director post of CBI are exclusively held by IPS as per CBI recruitment rules. Rules need to be amended: 1) the specific equivalent posts of IRS or IAAS has to be mentioned for respective posts in CBI in consonance with service years. 2) When other servicemen can work till DIG level , then why there is a  bar for joint director and director posts ? Let merit prevails. 

There has been constant power struggle going on inside the bureaucracy of one service against other. IRS (IT) service consistently targeting IAS or IPS officers by opening their income tax file or by raid and booking them under disproportionate asset cases. Whereas IPS officers are consistently targeting especially IAS, IRS (IT) and IRS(C&CE) officers under corruption cases and book them under Prevention of corruption act, 1988. It’s an insider fact that CBI in order to finish their monthly or yearly targets will be fulfilled by booking cases against other servicemen.  IAAS officers now using audit tool to put all other services on toe because their any audit objections can spoil the career of other servicemen. Every services wants to show their fear and try to seek allegiance from other. Service targeting has to be stopped. Sometimes honest officers are also targeted, led to demoralization in services. All are equal services and all have to respect and trust each other, and all must act together to deliver good governance. And yes, no guilty remains unpunished.

The way forward to bring camaraderie and unity in civil services. During British India civil services, where all civil services officers were called as an ICS officers without any distinction of job they do, in my opinion such nomenclature has to be adopted for all services because our exam is common which is known as Civil services examination, which selects people for Indian civil services. There is need of specialization which has to be inculcated right from entry level of civil servants. There is need of creating new services like Indian health services, Indian Water management services and Indian judicial services under all India Civil services to bring more specialist services in the bureaucracy. Indian bureaucracy has to be revamped based on out of box thinking. We need to learn from developed countries, how professionally their government services works. 2^nd ARC has a good no. of recommendations to bring energy in the so called fossilized bureaucracy. Weberian bureaucracy is a necessary evil, for democracy to survive. It was Sardar Patel, the Iron man from Gujarat who must be called as a savior of Indian civil services and now again there is a man from Gujarat who can revamp the whole system to make this evil behaving like an angel.