Should Lateral Entry to the IAS be Welcomed?

Rajesh Kondall
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read
The bureaucracy at work

The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is often called the steel frame of Indian bureaucracy. Recently the Department of Personnel and Training invited applications from interested candidates to fill 10 posts at the level of joint-secretary in the Union government.

The Joint-secretary level post occupies a unique position in the Indian bureaucracy. A civil servant (mostly an IAS officer) reaches this level after putting in 10–12 years of work experience. It is at the cutting edge of policy making in the Union government and is also tasked with policy implementation.

A civil servant who has reached the joint-secretary position is expected to the know the field level problems since he/she should have encountered them during their field posting in the initial period of their career.

So what explains the need to bring outside domain experts at this middle rung of Indian bureaucracy? The reasons for lateral entry into civil services are many.

  1. The IAS officers do not stay in their posting for more than 3 years. The result is they do not obtain specialisation of any one field and keep shuffling between one posting to another.
  2. The IAS was never meant as a specialist service. It is a generalist service that is supposed to cater to all departments irrespective of their technical requirements.
  3. Outside individuals from the private and public sector will infuse fresh energy and ideas and competition into the staid bureaucracy which will galvanise the civil service to deliver better results.
  4. The experiment of lateral entry has already been successfully attempted in the Planning Commission, RBI, UIDAI, Finance Ministry etc.

However, one could argue that the bright candidates did not clear the tough civil services exam became IAS officers only to face competition from outsiders after 12 years of service.

This could have a demoralising effect on an already overburdened bureaucracy accused of political nepotism and inefficient delivery of services.

But then these are precisely the drawbacks of the bureaucracy which lateral entry is intended to overcome.

And to ensure level playing field between the career bureaucrats and the lateral entrants, certain safeguards have been ensured:

  1. The individuals recruited to the post of Joint-Secretary will be screened by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) which conducts the civil services examination to various posts in the Central government through which the career bureaucrats are recruited.
  2. The lateral entrants will be subjected to the same conduct rules as the civil servants. The latter are governed by the Civil Service (Conduct) Rules.

Also, it should be remembered that this is just an experiment. Only ten Joint-Secretary level posts have been earmarked at present for lateral entry for domain level experts from outside and that too for a period of 3 years, extendable, upto 5 years.

If this experiment is successful the government may consider opening up more posts for lateral entry.

At the same time it should allow career bureaucrats to be deputed to private companies for similar duration to obtain the latest management and human resources skills and, if possible, understand problems at the ground level.

Lateral entry might be a new idea in the Indian bureaucracy but it is already in existence in the United States since long where the career bureaucracy co-exists with the support staff that is handpicked by the President and his Secretaries (Ministers).

So if this experiment of lateral entry results in better and more efficient delivery of services, less red tape, more practical policies, and savings of public money then by all means lateral entry into civil services should be welcomed.

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