CIVIL SERVICES : CHALLENGES

 

CHALLENGES IN CIVIL SERVICES

1. Accountability

Ø Civil servants in India are accountable to the ministers, but in practice, the accountability is vague and of a generalised nature. The accountability relationship is left to the incumbent minister to interpret it in a manner that is most convenient to him/her.

Ø This leads to either collusive relationship or to discord, both of which can adversely affect the administration.

Ø Thus there is an urgent need to codify this relationship preferably by enacting a law. The life long job security further leads to distorted incentive structure.

Ø Disciplinary action against non performing officers is a rarity and is a long process.

Ø While the performance of government organisations and their subunits are periodically subjected to in depth reviews, seldom are efforts made to link the organisational performance to the performance of an individual civil servant.

 

2. Transfers and postings

Ø Arbitrary transfers and postings of civil servants by the ministers concern implementation of developmental programmes.

Ø transfers are made on the basis of caste, religion, money, favouritism. This leads to splitting up of bureaucracy and its demoralisation.

ACTIONS :

Ø Transfer and tenure policies must be developed in an independent manner any premature transfer should be based on publicly disclosed sound administrative grounds which should be spelt out in the transfer order itself.

Ø An officer should be given a fixed tenure and given annual performance targets.

Ø Civil Services authorities should be made statutory and autonomous. If the government does not agree with the recommendations of the authority, he will have to record his reasons in writing.

Ø An officer transferred before his normal tenure can agitate the matter before an ombudsman.

 

 

3. Ministerial interference in operations

Ø Ministers issue instructions, formal or informal, to influence the decisions of the bureaucracy often intruding in their domains.

Ø It has also been observed that officers, instead of taking decisions on their own, look up to the ministers for informal instructions.

Ø Several states have created an institution of District Incharge Minister to review the development activities in the district who routinely exceed their mandate intrude in the officer’s domain. These practices are unhealthy.

 

4. Appointments to the Civil Services

Ø While the UPSC enjoys an untarnished reputation for having developed a fair and transparent recruitment system, the same cannot be said for most of the SPSCs.

Ø In addition, large number of recruitments is done by departments under their control of the government directly. It is essential to lay down certain norms for such recruitments.

 

5. Poor incentives for advancement

Ø Bias toward seniority in filling key posts reduces the incentive for performing officers to swiftly obtain promotions.

Ø Even poorly performing officers are given promotion.

 

6. Lack of specialization : Some experts have questioned whether the IAS can continue to exist as a generalist service in a world that is increasingly complex and where domain knowledge has become more valuable.

 

7. Human capital

Ø The government is finding it hard to lure young talent away from increasingly attractive private sector opportunities.

Ø The combination of rising average age and lack of advanced academic qualifications implies that many candidates spend a majority of their twenties preparing for and taking entrance examinations for the elite civil services.

 

 

8. Attitudinal issues

Ø Civil servants believe that their authority is derived not from the mandate of the people but from an immutable corpus of rules that it has prescribed for itself.

Ø With reforms, the role of private sector and civil society has increased immensely. So the civil servants need to view them as partners instead of asserting their own pre-eminence.

 

9. Result orientation

Ø Civil Service in India is more concerned with the internal processes than with results. There is too much focus on amount of inputs used whether the full budget is used or not. As a result outcomes get neglected and civil servants are not held accountable for the results.

Ø The structures are based on hierarchies and there are a large number of veto points.

Ø To compound it, the size and the number of ministries and departments have proliferated and diminished the capacities of the individual civil servants to fulfill their responsibilities.

 ACTIONS :

Ø Achievement of results would require substantial devolution of managerial authority to the implementing levels. This would require giving civil servants in the implementing agencies greater flexibility and incentives to achieve results as well as relaxing the existing central controls.

Ø The counterpart of devolution should be more accountability. This can be achieved through agreements with the minister specifying the performance targets. These performance agreements should be put in the public domain. They should have clearly spelt out objective and measurable goals.

 

10. Resistance to change

Ø The perception is that they resist change as they are wedded to their privileges and prospects. Thus they have prevented us from realising the full benefits of the 73rd and 74th Amendments since it clashes with their own authority.

Ø They also resist simplification of procedures which is a prerequisite for introduction of e-governance since it would undermine their importance.

 

11. Exit mechanisms

Ø At present, rarely does a civil servant get dismissed from service or is punished on grounds of incompetence. It is necessary that all civil servants undergo a rigorous assessment of performance, at regular intervals, and compulsory retirement.

Ø New appointments should be made only for a fixed period, say 20 years, after which if the performance is not satisfactory, he can be removed. Such provisions are there in armed forces.