It has been six months since the second essay of this series was published. In this third essay, as promised in the second, and continuing the discussion of that part, I will be examining, outlining and envisioning a reform schema for the individual branches of senior civil services. This is being done within the overall analytical framework elaborated in the second essay titled ‘India’s Senior Bureaucracy – Generalist, Specialist and Specialized Generalist’
An attempt was made in the second essay to construct a framework within which the present institutional structure of branching can be reformed and redesigned. This essay takes the project forwards, and delves directly in the empirical world of individual service branches, their jostling and power politics, their domain and jurisdiction, and in this process, proposes a new structure within the contours of the framework fashioned out in the earlier essay. In fact, the logic, ideas and dialectics of the earlier essay defines the approach and narrative of this essay. This whole exercise can also be termed as an exploration of ‘ideas’ – for alternative modes of organising and structuring the institution of bureaucracy. Indeed, this exploration is completely in line with what Keynes said about primacy of ‘ideas’: “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly supposed. Indeed the world is ruled by little else” (Skidelsky, 2010). With the finalisation, this essay turns out to be a long one, but the issues needed thorough analysis and I hope readers will find it relevant, topical and interesting. Further, the whole essay is more empirical than academic, as I have already discussed major theoretical, conceptual and framework issues in the second essay.
I. Introduction
Let me start by quoting Isaiah Berlin from his famous essay – The Hedgehog and The Fox. He says, “There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning , is defeated by the hedgehog’s one defence. But taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divides writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.” (Berlin, 1953).
Further, quoting Berlin, Gordon Wood, the famous American historian, says “On one side of the chasm are the foxes, who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle. On the other side are the hedgehogs, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate , in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.” (Wood, 2011)
With these insightful observations of Berlin and Wood, let me recollect that I have proposed reorganisation (and creation) of service branches in accordance with what I have called ‘broad domain areas’. Thus service branches should be organised or created not for any specific department/ministry/organisation, but for broad functional domains, to have a professional cadre of ‘specialized generalist’ officers who will be commanding the leadership positions in governmental organisations. Thus, the whole idea is to have a structure which have senior leaders with characteristics of both Foxes and Hedgehogs – a new ‘hybrid’ species of foxes with spine@ of hedgehogs, or for that matter, hedgehogs with snout of foxes – if I may be allowed to extend the simile of Archilochus! (@spine of hedgehogs are spiky hollow hairs on its body made stiff with Keratin). I may also recall discussing that the crucial question is not whether any organisation (including government bureaucracy) need specialists or generalists, i.e., hedgehogs or foxes, but which type of animal is suitable at what level and under what situations. Hedgehogs are appropriate at lower levels and as one moves up in a hierarchy, more are more generalised, coordinating and strategic skills are required, necessitating more and more qualities of a fox in Archilochus’ terminology.
Moving forward, I will now be analysing different services branches in this essay – one by one. I should also point out that not ‘every’ group A service has been considered here. 2nd ARC Report (Government of India, 2009) list as many as 58 organised group A service. Here, I have been able to touch upon around 25 of them, which are better known and form the most significant of them. In any case, the principles and framework of analysis can be and has been extended to the broader question of institutional reorganisation, and the later part of the essay builds upon these, to come up with a comprehensive, integrated and alternative organisational and institutional structure, which will be much more efficient, effective, fair and non-discriminatory, and would be able to develop, channel and utilise the immense talent and potential of Indian senior civil servants.
This essay presents findings and recommendations in the form of a coherent and concrete schema of reorganising civil service branches. However, I should also point out that what I conclude is certainly not in the nature of final word. Other alternative approaches, grouping and designs are always possible and should be discussed and debated too. The most important reason for this analysis has been to flag the issue, outline and analyse the various axes and approaches for a possible framework, and look at alternative designs, processes, systems and structures.
Now, let me take up the individual branches one by one, and I will start with the almost ideal branch.
II. The Near Ideal Fox with Spine of Hedgehog: Indian Police Service (IPS)
IPS appears to the one service which, as on date, does closely resemble to what I have been propagating as a specialized generalist service for an important domain area – law and order, and policing – and is not confined to narrow departmentalism.
IPS officers, as a service branch, are at the forefront in maintaining law and order across the nation, for ensuring internal security, investigation of civil and criminal matters, law enforcement and all allied security matters. They function at the state level as well as at central government level. In that sense, IPS is a service which caters to the broad domain of ‘Policing’, a sovereign function, and almost fulfils my idea of an ideal service branch.
However, there are few important issues in case of IPS too, which needs consideration. First and the foremost is their subservient position to IAS District Magistrates (DM) when they serve as Superintendent of Police (SP) in districts across country. IPS officers have long been pressing for change in the present structure in districts (and especially in urban districts), and asking it to be changed to Commissionerate structure, with functionally independent police districts, that gives them not only magistrate power (and responsibilities too) but also a modern and responsive organisational structure. Such a system is already in place, most notably in Delhi, and also in many urban centres and cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, and in as many as 50 other urban districts. This is a desired reform, often termed as long pending Police Reform, and its largely checkered history with little success is, rightly, blamed on the IAS officers who do not want to let go their preeminent position in districts as DM. One of the reasons cited for keeping SPs under overall control of DMs is that police need to be under a civilian authority. However, there is not much merit in this argument, as it is trying to conflate police with military, and also forgetting that there is always a civilian and political control on police or other state officials through elected ministers and public representatives. Further, the experience of policing in Commissionerate structure in the cities, where it is operational for many years, only support the argument that such a structure is successful and desirable.
Another area of concern in terms of service structure is the dominance of IPS officers in para military organisations, like CRPF, ITBP, CISF etc and also in central level investigating agencies, like CBI, NIA, RAW etc, at the cost of in-house cadre of police officers of these organisations, who have been complaining for long about their step-motherly and unfair treatment in promotion, career progression and in terms of available opportunities. This is a genuine grievance, and mirrors that of the position of IAS vs other central group A service. The remedy perhaps lies in the same basic approach which I have outlined – if these organisations have officers who have been recruited as theoretically equivalent to IPS – they need to be given due recognition and roles. Otherwise, if IPS has to command a superior position (which I am inclined to propose), then in-house officers in these organisations have to have a different career structure, and apropos, should be recruited at appropriate level, being group B.
In terms of size, IPS cadre strength of around five thousand officers forms less than 0.25% of total of states police force, being around 22.8 lakhs personnel (Chaturvedi, 2017) thus being well within the standard ratio. This figure does not include the personnel in para military forces where also IPS officers are in commanding positions.
In sum, IPS seems to be very close to the idea of a ‘broad domain based’ civil service branch, and it needs hardly any change in its structure within this framework.
III. Small Is Beautiful: Indian Foreign Service (IFS)
This is a specialized service, with not a very big cadre (around seven hundred officers). However, the importance of foreign relation, diplomacy and related domain has kept this service in good stead and I am of the opinion that in terms of restructuring, not much is required to be done for IFS. The service branch is doing fine and has produced some notable experts and stalwarts of foreign relations and international diplomacy. Though in a recent article, Shashi Tharoor has expressed some concern over the lessening of attraction of IFS compared to service branches like IRS, I do not think there are sufficient reason to express such concerns.
The IFS is still one of the most coveted branches, and its unique and specialized nature of job with exposure to international relations and diplomacy has much to recommend for it. The cadre is also well managed with timely promotions, variety of responsibilities within the diplomatic domain, and a well recognised identity in society. The only thing in terms of reforms which comes to my mind is to think of something – some assignments – which can increase the exposure of IFS officers in India itself, by giving them responsibility of some domain which is closely related to foreign relations and diplomacy (obviously in addition to Ministry of External Affairs). May be some assignments in state governments for coordinating and managing foreign investments and relation with multilateral organisations!
IV. Do We Really Have A True Indian Revenue Service (IRS)?
In fact, there is not one, but two Indian Revenue Service. And this perhaps signifies the crux of the problem of IRS. Even these two separate service branches, called IRS-IT and IRS-CE (earlier it was called ICCES – Indian Custom and Central Excise Service), which are responsible for direct taxes and indirect taxes of central government respectively, together do not cover the full arena of ‘revenue’ function. As we all know, a huge amount of revenue (tax) is collected by state governments, and the IRS has not role to play in state revenue structure. Thus, IRS is a revenue service only in name. The situation has become more complex and complicated with the advent of GST – merging central indirect taxes and state level indirect taxes – and the resulting turf was between IAS and IRS-CE. The end result is the present dual structure of CGST and SGST, with two departments in each state – one central, other state – a very inefficient situation indeed. I would not go into this issue in detail here – I have already discussed these in one of my essays published earlier in Economic and Political Weekly (Kishore, 2012). Interested readers may like to refer to that essay for details.
What is needed here is to point out that these two branches combined together forms the largest central government service, having more than nine thousand group A officers, which is as much as 50% larger than the whole IAS cadre size. There has recently been some valid question on the utility and functional justification of such huge cadre of senior officers in the government of India just for collecting taxes. It assumed significance in light of the fact that only around a hundred IAS officers are deployed to collect all indirect taxes across all the states (through erstwhile Commercial Taxes or VAT departments, now state GST department) in the country. It may be noted that three major components of revenue in India: Income tax (direct tax by central government), excise and customs (indirect taxes by central government) and state VAT (indirect tax by state government) contribute roughly equal share – one third each – in total tax revenue collections of the country. The huge overstaffing in both IRS is also highlighted by the fact that these services form as much as around 6% of total size of the two departments which they manage (total strength of around 1.60 lakhs employees in Income Tax and Central Excise & Customs (now CGST) department). This institutional design is not only a huge drain on government resources, but is like a continuing deception and fraud, and should not at all be allowed to continue.
The present dual GST is rightly putting a question mark on the cadre structure and justification of IRS-CE. And the situation of IRS-IT is also not different, with strength of five thousand officers; it is a huge, bloated and inefficient service branch, leading to all kind of internal problems of career progression, organisational control, functional remapping and related issues. Like the IFoS in states, but to a more severe extent, over the year through repeated expansion of the cadre, both the services have made themselves top heavy where most of the senior officers are without much meaningful work. True, fiscal policies and taxes are a dynamic area, always evolving and changing, and the amount of reform seen in these areas in past two-three decades is impressive. However, the service branches have not been able to reform and restructure themselves in an appropriate way, and the strains are now for everyone to see.
What is to be done? The most immediate step is a drastic downsizing of IRS. Next, IRS is required to transform itself to become more like IPS. The specialized generalist domain – ‘Revenue’ has the potential and justification to demand a separate service branch for this function. Therefore, to start with, instead of two, there has to be a single IRS – by merging the two branches. Further, in terms of broad domain area, the service cannot not be confined to any one department, but should be responsible for leadership and managerial roles in all revenue departments, at all levels of governments. So all revenue and tax departments of central, state and local governments should have IRS officers at senior management level, and also those organisations which have revenue and fiscal implication. In any case, the advent of GST has made is amply clear that there is no need of having two separate administrative machinery, and certainly, no need of having different branches of civil services to man them.
The above operation will require some tough decisions, massive downsizing of IRS will be required to be clubbed with various structural changes, but without that the desired result cannot be achieved. With these reforms and functional reorganisation, IRS could then be transformed to a ‘broad domain based service branch’.
V. Services Galore: Accounting and Finance Services
The plethora of accounting services has never stopped to amaze and puzzle me. And I always wonder why we need so many different branches – almost one each for each of the important ministry of the central government. The multiplicity of these services are the most glaring example of the carelessness and thoughtlessness by which new, small, stand alone service branches have been created. Clearly these have been created over time, without much thought and certainly without much coordination at higher levels. And of course, the basic consideration of thinking over a cadre structure, career progression etc; have not been given their due. The result is for all of us to see. In most of the cases, there are issues of functional justification, existential question and the resulting attempts to somehow justify and expand the service cadre, leading to inefficiencies and bureaucratisation.
The most important of accounting services is Indian Audit and Account Service (IAAS), being senior managers of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). IAAS in many senses is a domain based service, not confined to a department, and therefore are different from other accounting/finance services. They are relatively small in size with around eight hundred officers. CAG is a constitutional authority, responsible for independent audit and examination of government accounting and expenditure. Further, Audit and Account Department also operates at both central and state government level. The constitutional provision related to CAG gives the organisation a special place in Indian public policy, though the service (IAAS) has not been assigned such a place. The service cadre of IAAS is well managed and this service is known for timely promotion and some good career opportunities to its officers.
The major function of the IAAS officers is to audit the government expenditure in different departments/organisations, and they command a certain reputation for their work. Further, IAAS officers are also responsible for accounting and finance function of states (in some states, specified and limited) and in this role, they are doing the same what other accounting services are doing for the central government departments.
There are then other accounting and finance services, totalling slightly more than one thousand officers, created specifically for managing accounting and finance function of different departments. In this sense, they are not only super specialized service, but also are restricted and limited in their approach and worldview due to their small size and limited exposure. Thus we have Indian Post and Telegraph Accounts and Finance Service (IPTAFS) – for department of Post and Telegraphs, Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) – for Ministry of Defence, Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) – for Railways, Indian Civil Accounts Service (ICAS) – for all other civilian department of central government.
By nature, accounting is not a domain function, like revenue or policing or healthcare. It is an administrative function, and an important one, which is required for every department. Naturally, then it should be one of the service branch organised on the basis of this administrative requirement – something like an Indian Accounts and Finance Service – the officers of which would then work in different departments of government, changing their department from time to time, thus benefiting from cross learning and wider exposure and experience which, as I have already pointed out, is much more needed at senior level. In that sense, what we need is a specialized generalist service for Accounting and Finance function.
The easiest way to achieve this is by merging all the existing accounting services. Let me also say that merging IAAS with all these services (or for the sake of semantics – merging all these accounting services into IAAS) may be a good option too. I must make a distinction clear here, which we may sometimes lose track of. What I am talking here is merging of service branches, not of departments. The domain mapped service branches, which will not be confined to a department, will naturally need to exist outside and beyond these departments. In this particular case, the officers of this merged IAAS will carry out functions of audit as well as accounting and finance in all government departments, central as well as states. Even now, IAAS officers are not confined to audit function, but are involved in accounting of state governments. Therefore, a unified service for the administrative domain of audit and accounting is the need of the hour, which will result in to a more justified, rational and ‘broad domain based service branch’.
VI. Promise of A New Hybrid: Single Service for Revenue, Finance and Audit
What actually is revenue domain? What is finance and accounting function? What is an audit function? How are they different? And to what extent they are similar? If we can classify finance and accounting as an administrative function, and not strictly as a functional domain, what about the revenue function – is it a functional domain? Perhaps yes, but its functional closeness and affinity with finance and accounting function is striking.
If we start looking at this issue with a open mind, without being bogged down by pre-existing structure and separate services for these functions, we would be struck by the strong similarity in the fundamental nature of these domains.
Revenue function is basically a public finance function – concerned mainly with various types of fiscal policies, revenue and taxes, treasury operations and then about revenue administration – being largely about determining the correct liability of taxes payable by various authorities – private and public, and collection of taxes. This involves skills and expertise in public finance, accounting, financial management, inquiry-investigation and legal acumen, and of course man management skills. On the other hand, finance and accounting – for the service branches – is about financial management, accounting, expenditure management and control function of government organisations. Further, the audit function of IAAS is another kind of financial control which is done independently, and is a kind of post-mortem, after the completion of activities, projects and programs. In fact, often this audit function extends beyond the mere financial examination, to the activity of review of policies, program and projects too. Similarly, an important part of public finance function of IRS is, again audit function – a post-mortem of activities, projects and programs of organisations, both public and private, although with a view to ensure their compliance to revenue laws. Thus the similarities in revenue, finance, accounting and audit functions are indeed very palpable and visible.
Here, the nuanced distinction of ‘finance’ being an operative function like ‘administration’ and not a ‘functional domain’ in the natural sense of the term, like ‘revenue’ and further like ‘agriculture’, ‘public health’ or ‘education’ is not actually relevant. As I will discuss in the next part, while examining the functional and other aspects of IAS, in terms of ‘administration’ being an operative function, i.e., a general management function; the identification of broad domain area for creating service branches need not strictly adhere to these general management function. Because, if I adopt that approach, perhaps I will have to propose only one service – IAS; the most generalised – which will do all senior management function; and then I have to next recommend that, within this IAS, there should be further domain based specialisation. Instead of all this, what I am proposing is creation of service branches on the basis of broad domains itself, which will then be responsible for general administration, strategic management, policies and program at senior and leadership levels in those broad domain areas across ministries and department, levels of government and different organisations. Therefore, in this present instance, revenue-finance-audit-accounting, all are essentially a broad domain for the purpose of creation of one single service, and that is what I am proposing.
If I may be allowed to generalise – and for our current question of identifying ‘broad domains’, it is imperative too to generalise – the core of revenue and finance function is the same. It is public finance and public financial management and control. And therefore, it makes perfect sense to have one service for this ‘broad domain area’ of public financial management. May I propose a name for that – Indian Revenue and Finance Service (IRFS).
Therefore, what is required to be done is to merge two IRS, IAAS, and all other finance/accounts services together, into one IRFS. This service will then be responsible for leadership positions in all revenue and finance function, including economic and financial regulation, audits, financial markets and financial control and would play an important and essential role in central, states and local governments.
VII. How to Restructure Indian Administrative Service (IAS)?
I have already said enough in earlier essay about hegemonic position of IAS (with cadre size of around six thousand officers) and how this has created an anomalous situation and widespread resentment among other service branches. Let me now examine how IAS can be restructured.
In terms of principles, if every service has to be a specialist service, then there should not be IAS. And if there is a completely generalist service like the present IAS, where an officer works in public healthcare one day, and goes to energy department next day, and then to tax department next, then there is no need of specialist services for tax, health or other domains which are equivalent to IAS. This is one of the reasons which have brought me to the framework under which I am proposing a ‘broad domain based’ service branches.
Therefore, IAS too, needs to be remodelled and restructured on these lines. How to do that? To start, the 2nd ARC has accepted that the domain specialisation should be made part of career planning and progression of IAS. The 2nd ARC Report, in its 10th Report on Refurbishing Personnel Administration, mentions 12 domain specialisations (Government of India; 2nd ARC; 2009). It also discusses 8 domains earlier identified by 1st ARC. The 12 domains are: General Administration, Urban Development, Security, Rural Development, Financial Management, Infrastructure, HRD Social Empowerment, Economic Administration, Tax Administration, Agricultural Development, Natural Resource Administration, and Health Management. Though, ARC in this part of the report is talking about all branches, the above classification seem mostly to be done with IAS in mind. The Report further lists some specializations for IPS officers in the next paragraph. It appears that although the Report is envisaging domain specialization for different services, domain recommendations for other services are conspicuous by their absence. Ironically and as a matter of fact too, it is not possible to identify domains for other services because these services are themselves domains or even partial domains.
What is more, the Report also talks about mapping of different posts in various central ministries in line with these specialisations and talks of assigning (IAS) officers to these posts as per their domain specialisation. In fact, to be frank, the Repot is not at all clear about what and how these ideas and schemes can be implemented and surely, whatever is envisaged is highly IAS centric, with hardly any talk about other services. This is again a classic example of IAS hegemony where, though there is apparently discussion about all the services, the actual emphasis and recommendations are only for IAS.
If we need service branches on the basis of even ‘very broad domain’, IAS does not qualify to be a single service; it needs to be broken down into parts – to correspond with those broad domains. However, it does not appear to be a practical and feasible option. Due to various historical, organisational and institutional reasons, it may not be advisable to recommend this, and I am also not for breaking down the IAS in to branches. What I propose, therefore, is to have broad domains within IAS itself, as a compromise, wherein IAS officers will specialise in one of these domains during their career and built and develop their professional expertise.
Here, the 2nd ARC report is helpful in identifying domains. In my framework, and in a scheme where I am considering separate services for broad domains, obviously eight or twelve domains for IAS appears to be too much. I have therefore, identified two broad domains for IAS. The first one, to be called ‘Economy and Industry’ will have all economic and industrial development functions, including energy, infrastructure, transport, communication, commerce, trade and markets, urban development etc. The second one, to be called ‘Human Development’ will have all welfare, public goods and human development functions, including public health, hygiene and sanitation, social security, public welfare policies and programs, poverty alleviation and rural development, primary, secondary and higher education etc. Clearly, my list in indicative only and not exhaustive. Further, these are not watertight divisions, and certain overlap among these domains will be natural. What is imperative is to have identification of broad domains in which an officer should specialise. Some of the functions which IAS perform now, especially at state level, will naturally go to other broad domain based service branch as being proposed here, for example, IRFS will be responsible for managing state level finance and revenue departments.
A very important issue need to be addressed here. That is about the institution of District Magistrate (DM) or Deputy Commissioner (DC) – who are the manager of districts in India – and these posts are for IAS officers only. Any reform and restructuring of a service cadre has to take care of the career based progression and functional responsibilities the officers are expected to undertake over the years. In the present structure, IAS officers, during the initial half of their career – i.e., around first 15 years of their career, are given responsibility of DM, and once they are promoted to the level of SAG, they then mostly are made Secretary or equivalent in state governments, responsible for policies and program of one department/organisation. Obviously, I am generalising the career path of IAS officers and this is not the case in every instance. But it is true enough for our purposes. Thus, for the first fifteen years, IAS officers are generalist manager in particular districts, taking care of all domains, and after that they are in charge of one specific function/department, generally for the whole of the state. It is a beautifully designed structure from a service branch point of view. Do we need to change it? And what about the new proposed broad domain based services? How their cadre structure and responsibilities will be designed vis-a-vis this structure of IAS? And more importantly, are there trends that the institution of DM is changing or the role of DM is diminishing due to advent of Panchayati Raj institutions? And how is it going to affect the whole dialectic?
Quite clearly, I do not see any dilution in the roles and functions of DM in the coming future due to advent of Panchayati Raj institutions or other factors. The reasons are many. India is a federal democracy, with a two tier structure – central government and state governments. Despite the introduction of Panchayati Raj institution and other local government representative institutions – purporting to be forming the third layer of democratic structure – the basic mechanism of the state and governance remains the same, and in all probability, would remain the same. I do not envisage state governments devolving substantial autonomy and power – legislative, administrative and financial – to elected representatives at the local level, and therefore, the career executive-bureaucrat, as representative of the state government, would remain the most important executive and administrative authority in a district. Therefore, a situation like USA – where city/county Mayors or similar authorities, who are elected by people and are executive administrators of that jurisdiction, and who can roughly be considered equivalent to our DMs – is not going to develop in India, at least not in the next few decades. DM or DC would remain the most important and a vital functionary in the foreseeable future. He is rightly been identified as the most important functionary/representative of the government in a district, the counterpart of Prime Minister (PM) and Chief Minister (CM) in a district (aptly captured in oft heard anecdote about three most powerful authorities in India, being PM, CM and DM). Further, the still underdeveloped nature of our country and society, where even the basic necessities of life and human existence are not available to large number of people, and where there are still huge challenges of basic education, healthcare and livelihood, the dismantling of institution of DM without having comparable alternative structure is not a good idea.
Here, let me also point out that on many occasion, the blame for the underdevelopment and the failure of government to ensure welfare of people at large has been placed on these institutions and IAS officers, and in all fairness they need to take a substantial blame for the failures. Nevertheless, there are many other factors which need to be examined and analysed for a deeper and nuanced understanding of such failures, which, though, is not my aim here in this essay. Without going further, I will only mention that the experience of handing over the responsibility of providing some public services to private sector operators, like healthcare, in selected pockets of the country has also not been very promising, and has given rise to its own set of problems and issues. And let me also add that wide variation in performance and efficiency of state governments, from Bihar to Tamilnadu, from West Bengal to Karnataka, with the same cadre of IAS officers, do point out that there are many other factors which contribute towards development and underdevelopment, and performance or otherwise of government institutions.
Thus, within the framework of broad domain based services, IAS as a ‘panacea’ service does not fit in. In fact, the existence of IAS as a super generalist appears to be the impediment blocking the movement towards the goal of broad domain based services. It is the huge iceberg with potential to sink the reform ship midway! As I said earlier too, strictly speaking, if IAS has to be there, then there is no need for most other services as equivalent specialized services, and if other services have to exist as equivalent to IAS, IAS itself needs to move towards broad specialisations. This appears to be an intractable problem. Ideally, IAS should have been, in this schema, split into two independent service branches, one each for ‘economic development’ and ‘human-social development’ sectors. But as I have discussed above, it may not be a very prudent, practical and feasible solution, at least not in the present situation.
Therefore, in sum, I am recommending retaining IAS as a service, but with two broad domain areas within it for specialisation – ‘Human Development’ and ‘Economy and Industry’.
VIII. Environment and Natural Resource: Indian Forest Service (IFoS)
For those who would like to define civil service strictly in terms of those branches which are recruited through UPSC civil service examination, IFoS will not quality as a civil service, as the recruitment is done through a separate examination by UPSC. Nevertheless, they are a civil service branch for all practical purposes and should be counted as such. The cadre size is of around two thousand eight hundred officers. This being a relatively old service, the roles and responsibilities has changed with the changing times. However, the change is more visible at the central government level, where the profile and responsibilities of IFoS officers have improved due to increased awareness and emphasis on environment, ecology and related issues in public policy decision making. In states, their situation is not that good, and this is a cause of frustration and resentment among the officers. In districts, IFoS officers, as District Forest Officers, work under overall supervision of DM and even at the state level, the Forest/Environment Department is always headed by an IAS officer. Further, the state level cadre is often beset with the problem of top heavy pyramid, with many posts created solely for the purpose of ensuring promotion of the officers. The situation is not very different from what prevails in the IRS. In fact, it would not be wrong to conclude that the top heavy pyramidal structure is a widespread problem with large number of services. Only IAS, to a large extent, has been able to stave off this issue, largely by keeping their generalist nature intact by strictly controlling unnecessary expansion of their cadre, and by exclusive claim over the post of DM.
What is the future of IFoS? And where does it fit in the framework of broad domain based service? I see IFoS as an important branch, and a branch which has been unfairly neglected. Many of their issues listed above can be taken care of if the service is redesigned by identifying its extended ‘natural domain’ – and giving it jurisdiction over this natural domain. And this extended natural domain is also a broad domain area for which a separate service branch would be appropriate.
The natural broad domain corresponding to what IFoS officers are doing now, is what I would term ‘Environment and Resources’, which will include environment, ecology, forest, flora and fauna, natural resources (meaning thereby minerals, metals, petroleum etc) and their management, and then agricultural and animal husbandry too, including food and food related domains. Therefore, officers of this branch should be managing leadership roles in all organisations, department and ministries, at central and state government levels, which deals with the above identified domains and functions.
Accordingly, the branch should be reconstituted on the above line, and I propose to rename this service as Indian Environment and Resource Service (IERS). The recruitment should also be done through Civil Services Examination.
IX. What to Do with Railways?
Railway in a unique case. Strictly speaking, it consists of three specialized civil services: Indian Railway Accounting Service (IRAS), Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) and Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) – their functions are obvious from their names – with a total size of around three thousand officers. In addition, Indian railways also have six-seven more services, what are called ‘technical’ group A services – most of them recruited through Indian Engineering Services Examinations. Some of them being Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME) and Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS).
For Indian Railways, being one of the largest single employer organisations in the world, with as many as 1.5 million employees and a huge transportation infrastructure and land assets, it is understandable to have various specialized branches of senior management personnel. However, organisation of these branches in the form of permanent cadre based service has also given rise to various types of inter-cadre and inter-departmental rivalries and politics, leading to some serious problems.
What is to be done in the sense of restructuring of the civil services branches of Indian Railway? There has been an idea of merging all the three civil services of Railways into one, and concomitantly all the technical services into another branch. This may have those benefits which I have already pointed out in various other contexts. However, I would propose something different here. Railway officers should not be part of ‘civil service’, and therefore, they should not be recruited like other civil servants. Railway is a commercial organisation, essentially a transportation service company, though with a huge public service burden and significant positive externalities of its services. Nevertheless, it need to be run more like a transportation/commercial organisation, and the present civil service cadre of IRTS, IRPS, and IRAS should be abolished with the freedom given to Railways to manage their own affairs, employees and managers in the changing circumstances.
Abolition does not mean that the people presently working have to be fired, what I mean is that IRPS, IRTS etc. need not be identified as civil service branches. Railways need to be run like a transportation company with full freedom and autonomy to operate its business. It may not be an easy decision to make for the government, but it is the best possible course of action, in the short as well as long run. There are many other ways of keeping an eye on and ensuring overall supervision of the functioning of the railways, in light of public service nature of its function, which should be taken recourse to by the government.
X. Glorious Past But…? Indian Postal Service (IPoS)
Indian Postal Service officers, totalling around six hundred, obviously run the postal department of government of India. This formidable organisation has a glorious history since the British time. Even today, Department of posts boasts of as many as 1.5 lakh posts offices across the country, thus being one of the few central government department to have reached almost every corner of the country. However, during the past two-three decades, especially with the widespread use of electronic communication in far flung areas of the country, the relevance of letter and posts have significantly reduced. There are valid questions about the roles, functions and continued existence of department of posts, and by implication of IPoS. The organisation has also tried to enter more and more into banking and small saving services, but still the prospects does not look good. The small saving and banking function has been with the Postal department since long, though its importance is also reducing with increasing reach of banking and other financial services organisations, both from public and private sectors, in rural and semi urban areas.
Some of the IPoS officers give example of reinvention and revitalisation of US Post, and talk of similar transformation for India, but any concrete attempts and results are yet to be seen. As a group A civil service, IPoS officers running a postal department is not very convincing picture to me. I feel it’s a case more like that of Railways, and therefore, India post should be run like a commercial organisation. In light of above, I would say IPoS is a branch which has almost lost its relevance today and the best course of action would be to abolish it. Again abolishing a service branch does not mean firing the people employed. They can always be absorbed in to some other service branch or organisation. But yes, the IPoS has completed its life cycle and should go!
XI. Those Who Were Not So Lucky: Other Branches Which Are Hardly Visible
Every year, lakhs of aspirants to the civil service examinations appear in the gruelling three stage examination process to compete for few hundred of posts, and those lucky enough to be successful have, mostly a bright and secured future before them. However, for most of the aspirants, IAS is their service of preference. And depending upon their rank in the examination and their stated preference, the successful candidates are allocated to different branches.
For the general public at large, IAS, IPS and IFS are most well-known and recognised services. However, as we know, there are more than two dozen civil services/branches most of which are little known to the larger public. Those successful candidates who are not so lucky are allocated to lesser known and very specialized kind of services. Some of these are not even group A service, they are group B services. It should also be noted that most of these services have very small cadre size – in most cases not more than five hundred officers – leading to various kinds of cadre management issues. Which are these services? Let me list out some of these with their functions, and discuss their issues in brief.
Indian Information Service (IIS) officers used to run Akashvani and Doordarshan for Indian government. They still do so. But in their case too, as in the case of IPoS, the changing times are fast making their function obsolete and redundant. In today’s world of free, independent and commercial media, it might be claimed that there is a need for a communication medium which is government owned and controlled, though the arguments in support of such a point of view are very weak. Even if we assume it to be a desirable proposition, this does not lead us to the requirement of having a specialized civil service as IIS.
What will they do? They used to be special correspondents, Editors and managers in Doordarshan and Akashvani, used to publish magazines and newspapers, and used to man various posts in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Now what? Do we still need a group A service to man few posts in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting? What will happen to their cadre structure and Career prospects? All this points towards the inevitable conclusion that IIS has completed its life.
Central Secretariat Service (CSS) is a group B service, the officers forms lower and middle management level in central government ministry. They are a secretariat service and are expected to make important contribution to policy planning and program management at the central government level. In many senses, they are counterpart of state level civil services, who are also group B. CSS is an important branch and have a good presence and strength in all central government ministries and organisations.
They need to continue. However, some kind of domain specialisation may also be introduced for them so that officers have professional exposure, understanding and acumen to hold important and responsible positions. Despite being a group B service, many of the officers rise to the level of Joint Secretary (SAG) in later part of their career, and as such they form an important institutional and organisational support in the functioning of government of India.
Indian Trade Service (ITS) forms part of Ministry of Commerce, and were supposed to play a catalyst role in promoting trade and industry. Their relevance in today’s liberalised world is again under question. The service has no future, and needs to be abolished.
Indian Corporate Law Service (ICLS) being part of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, are relatively new service responsible for managing and regulating affairs related to companies. Again, they are a department specific service, and their function can be integrated with some other larger domain based service, like proposed IRFS. As a standalone group A service, they need not be retained.
Railway Protection Force Group A Service (RPF) forms part of Ministry of Railways and a specialized cadre for protecting Railways properties. Their separate existence form IPS does not seems logical, especially when regular state police force under IPS officers is also responsible for security of Railway and travellers. Their birth and existence are due to a colonial distinction between protecting railway property vs. protecting those travelling on trains. I do not see any reason for retaining a group A service within railways, for protection and security. It should be responsibility of police, and should be supervised by IPS officers. The service should therefore be abolished, and officers can be inducted into IPS.
Indian Defence Estate Service (IDES) again is a small branch under Ministry of Defence, responsible for taking care of defence lands and estates. Whatever they do can be taken care of by junior level officers supervised by other senior group A services or officers of Armed forces. Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS), as the name suggest, is another small, specialized service branch under Ministry of Defence, responsible for running defence production and related activities. In my view, there is no justification for maintaining a service like IOFS, that too, as a civil service. Armed Forces Headquarter Civil Service (Group B) is another junior civil service working at headquarters. Defence is in itself a huge domain, with large number of organisation for various specialized kind of functions, including research and development, production, operations, engineering etc. In such a scenario, the justification of having a service for Ordnance Factories, for Headquarters (and also for Defence Estate) seems quaint and illogical. If at all, an umbrella civil service for defence sector may be conceived to maintain a civilian control over different functions of armed forces. In any case, to some extent this already is the case in Defence Ministry where good number of CSS, IAS and some other central service officers are working at all levels, from Under Secretary to Secretary, Defence.
At last, I must also mention four group B services, specifically for Delhi and Andaman Nicobar, and for Pondicherry, being Delhi and Andaman Nicobar Civil Service (Group B), Delhi and Andaman Nicobar Police Service (Group B), Pondicherry Civil Service (Group B), Pondicherry Police Service (Group B). As the name clarifies, these are civil service and police service for these union territories. Why only these territories, and why not for other, is beyond understanding. Perhaps these are equivalent to state level/provincial civil and police services, and are being maintained for these Union Territories because these are not full state, lacking any of the institutional structure of state level public service commission. But keeping them together with group A civil services examination does not seem appropriate. It has been done mainly for convenience, to save the extra burden to UPSC. However, being recruited through the same examination, the officers in these services expect certain level of parity and this ultimately lead to various issues.
I should also point out that despite being a group B service, DANICS and DANIPS have been popular with candidates, and quite a few have opted them at the cost of many group A service. This is understandable, as these services has the attraction of being based in Delhi, and also of working as a junior IAS or IPS officers in Delhi.
The characteristics features of all these ‘not so well known’ service branches is their small size, very specialized nature of job responsibility and confinement to one particular department. Officers working in these services often are not very happy with service condition and career prospects, as mostly these are not very good. The small size and type of work they are expected to perform many times lead to further alienation, demotivation and frustration with the overall condition. Such a situation for a senior officer, who is supposed to be leader and manager, is not at all desirable, and can have very detrimental effect in the long run. Added to this is the fact that in most cases, the Secretary or senior most officers in these services cadres/ministries is an IAS officer. In effect, most of these services are, for all practical purposes, function as a group B service. This anomaly further leads to frustration and feelign of discrimination. Perhaps those negative impacts are already affecting the performance of various branches of governments staffed by these services. This problem is often ignored, or taken very lightly, not being paid due attention which it demands, and this further escalates the negativity and overall environment of lassitude and apathy.
I recommend abolition of most of these services, as they are very small and they do not qualify to be given the status of group A service. Another approach could be to designate them as group B service, and also merge many of them with Central Secretariat Service – the generalist branch of central government group B service.
XII. Economics and Statistics Branches
Two services, namely Indian Economic Service (IES), and Indian Statistical Service (ISS), are not truly civil services as the recruitment is done through a specialized examination by UPSC. However, they are a domain based specialized group A service, with presence in most of the ministries and departments of the central government and hardly any presence at state level organisations.
They are organised cadre of service less well known than most others and have small cadre size of slightly more than one thousand officers combined. Many senior IES officers today occupy the position of Economic Advisor (at the level of Joint Secretary or above) in different department of central government. However, their real contribution is often limited to providing advice only, which is rarely heard, and perhaps never implemented. This is a sad state of affairs, to say the least, because the insight, expertise and specialized knowledge of economics (and statistics too) which can be provided by IES/ISS officers is a valuable input. ISS officers are mostly found in Statistics and Program Implementation department, National Sample Survey organisation and similar other places. Again it is a technical and specialized nature of work.
Despite the importance of economic and statistical analysis and advice in the government, I found the question of service as a unique case. IES and ISS are technical service, and the domain of their specialized expertise have a limited, though important role. In my overall framework, I find it difficult to incorporate them somewhere, and it appears that they have to remain a specialized service branch, with meagre presence in various ministries. IES and ISS also used to have a good presence in Yojana Aayog, but with its restructuring as Niti Aayog, and with the trend of employing economist and statistician directly from academia, research institutions and think tanks with short term contract, the future of IES and ISS is really a question which needs to be deliberated.
The idea of employing economist and statisticians directly from academia and research institution can continue. In fact, this approach and initiative can be extended for appointment of economist and statisticians in various line ministries too, and can be institutionalised. Further, it has in a way been formalised too at Niti Aayog, with the new recruitment rules for appointment of Consultants/Sr. Consultants etc, as well as for Advisors and Sr. Advisors too (being senior posts at Joint/Additional Secretary level) – though it is for specialists of various domains, and not only for economists and statisticians. To me, this appears to be an attractive and desirable approach – especially in light of fact that such positions would always be limited in number and would therefore may not support maintenance of a fully-fledged group A senior service branch of their own. In such a scenario, IES and ISS perhaps also need to be abolished.
XIII. Do We Have an Expiry Date for Services Too?
Yes! We must realise that organised civil service, which offers a relatively secured career with predictable career progression features, is more in need of regular examination and review, and then in need of corresponding reform and restructuring. Otherwise, it will be very easy for these organised senior civil services to degenerate into a typical bureaucracy, which is not a change agent, not a facilitator, but a hurdle, a bottleneck and an impediment to the rapid growth and welfare of the people at large. Sadly most of the branches of civil services have failed to change and restructure themselves with the changing needs of the country and people.
As I have identified earlier, there are certain services which have outlived their utility, and perhaps the most appropriate action in such cases is to abolish them. IPoS, IIS and ITS are the most prominent candidates.However, outright abolition of these services may not be advisable. There could be alternative ways, starting from stopping any fresh recruitment, to retraining and lateral movement of the present lot of officers, to absorb these officers in to another expanding service, to offer VRS etc. Others need drastic restructuring, including merger, downsizing, realignment, restructuring and reform, many of which have already been discussed above.
XIV. Designing the Refurbished Branches and The New Institutional Structure
In the process of discussing various aspects of different branches of services in preceding paragraphs and making recommendations for their reform, what I have also elaborated is a framework for reorganising service branches on the basis of ‘broad domain areas’- the concept introduced and analysed in the second essay of this series.
In that essay, I discussed the issues and problems in identifying broad domain areas, and in the process also classified governmental functions in three broad categories. I also noted that deriving something meaningful and feasible for designing broad domain based service branches would require examination of existing structure, identifying the affinities among different functional domains and seiving these through types of functions.
Having done that in the previous paragraphs, where I have taken up existing services branches and analysed their structure, jurisdictions and functions, and then tried to map them into natural broad functional domains, I have also arrived at what I would call a six fold classification for constituting broad domain based service branches. In fact, these six broad domains have, in a sense, ‘evolved’ and ‘took shape’ in a natural and organic way in the process of analysing existing service branches, the affinities and cohesiveness of domains and their placement in the overall schema. All of this has been approached from what Rawls calls an original position while elaborating his principle of justice and fairness (Rawls, 2001). The idea has also been to avoid ‘path dependency’ in identifying and proposing new structure, though perhaps I have not been able to achieve it completely due to the very nature and process through which the issue has been approached and analysed. In any case, these resulting six branches have already been identified and discussed above separately and individually. Let me collect them together and place them within the framework of analysis I am constructing.
Thus, the whole gamut of governmental functions, at federal, state and local level have been grouped in six broad types of domains, which is summarised in the table below:
| Broad Domain | Type of Function | Illustrative domains, departments, areas |
| Police and Internal Security | Sovereign, Public Goods, | Police, Internal security, Law and Order, Intelligence and Investigation, Crime control, |
| Human Development | Public Goods, Economic and Social Management | Public Health and well being, Hygiene, Social welfare, School education, Higher education, Rural development, Social security, Poverty alleviation, |
| Economy and Industry | Public Goods, Economic and Social Management | Industry, Infrastructure, Commerce, Trade and markets, Energy and power, Transport, Communication, Industrial management, Urban development, |
| Revenue and Finance | Sovereign, Economic Management | Public finance and treasury, Revenue and taxes, Financial management and control, Accounting, Audit, Economic and financial regulation, Financial markets |
| Environment and Resources | Public Goods, Economic and Social Management | Environment, Forests, Ecology, Flora and fauna, Agriculture, Food, Animal husbandry, Natural resources, Minerals, Petroleum and natural gas |
| Foreign Relations | Sovereign | Foreign relations, Diplomacy |
It might be noted that the above classification scheme is neither watertight nor mutually exclusive classes. In any case, arriving at some mutually exclusive classes and from there to corresponding service branches has not been the underlying objective. The fundamental attempt is to arrive at a broad and clear, yet flexible, fluid and permeable grouping which can then help in constituting service branches in terms of broad domains. That is precisely what has been achieved as shown in the table above. Thus for example, a function like agro-based industrial development can be classified into either ‘Economy and Industry’ or into ‘Environment and Resource’ domains, and both are equally justified. Similarly, a function like regulation of stock exchanges will in the first instance, appear to be belonging to ‘Revenue and Finance’ domain, but may also be included in ‘Economy and Industry’ domain.
Accordingly, it might appear that the issue of assignment of responsibility of domain or functional areas to a particular service branch may result into some difficulty or may also lead to some competition, rivalries and even disputes. I would say that to some extent, healthy competition and rivalries are desirable, as it will only lead to improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of officers. However, if it starts leading to disputes and unhealthy rivalries, it will be undesirable. In any case, the basic premise for broad domain based service is also to have enough flexibility within the specialisation itself, to help the government choose best person for any particular responsibility, and therefore, attempting a classification system which is too rigid, inflexible and restrictive of movement is not desirable. In fact, in my scheme, movement of officers across these broad domain areas should be possible and in fact would be taken as natural.
With the above classification scheme for new institutional design, I have also identified and recommended constitution of five broad domain based services in the previous paragraphs. The table below lists these six broad domain areas, the corresponding five proposed services, and also maps the proposed services with the existing service branches:
| Broad Domain Areas | Proposed Service for the Broad Domain | Corresponding Mapping With Existing Branches |
| Police and Internal Security | Indian Police Service (IPS) | IPS, RPF (?) |
| Human Development | Indian Administrative Service (IAS) | IAS, IPoS (?), IIS (?), IRPS (?), ITS (?) |
| Economy and Industry | ||
| Revenue and Finance | Indian Revenue and Finance Service (IRFS) | IRS-IT, IRS-CE, IAAS, ICAS, IDAS, IRAS, IPTAFS, ICLS (?) |
| Environment and Resources | Indian Environment and Resource Service (IERS) | IFoS |
| Foreign Relations | Indian Foreign Service (IFS) | IFS |
Thus, in the new institutional schema, there would be five broad domain based service branches, which will provide leadership to all functional areas divided into six broad domains as in table above. The special case of IAS, where it will be responsible for two broad domains may kindly be noted, and I have dealt why it is being proposed like this in part VII above. The corresponding mapping of proposed services with the existing ones is an indicator of possibilities. This has mainly been done with a view to absorb and merge the existing branches in to the proposed branches where they would most naturally fit and adjust in terms of their present functional domains. Again, this list is not exhaustive as in many cases of service branches that need to be abolished, I have not been able to reach to a conclusion as to where officers from these services should be shifted or merged to, and this remains an open question.
It is also expected that with the aforementioned five fold division of services, each service will have a cadre size of anywhere between three thousand to five thousand officers, except in the case of IFS, which would be small in comparison – with, at the most, one thousand officers.
In terms of structure, operations and process, the following points further clarify as to how this new institutional structure can be made to function smoothly:
- With the aforementioned structure of five services, there will be, for all practical purpose, real parity among service branches. This will mainly result from formation of significant broad service branches, which would not be confined and limited to one department, restricted function or small jurisdiction. Each service branch will have significant functional domain and wide area to manage and administer. With this structure, the feeling of neglect, partiality, exploitation and jealousy will largely be gone, and officers will be positively motivated and healthily competing. As pointed out already in respective sections, most of the smaller and outdated service branches will have to be abolished.
- Obviously and naturally, then, the highest level posts in the respective domain areas, department and organisation will be manned by officers of the corresponding branch. For example, the Home Secretary in central government as well as in all the state governments would be an IPS officer, not an IAS. Similarly, in the new scheme, an Agricultural secretary, in state or in central government, would be an IERS officer. And again, Secretary, Finance in state governments as well as in central government would be an IRFS officer, not an IAS. But yes, for domains assigned to IAS officers, the secretary would obviously be an IAS officer – for departments like Rural development, Public Health, School education, Heavy Industry etc.
- All these services, with the possible exception of IFS, would be working with state as well as central government, more or less like what happens presently in the case of IAS, IPS and IFoS. In technical parlance, presently theses three services are called All Indian Services, whereas other services like IFS, IRS, IAAS etc are called Central Services. This distinction is without any basis and would certainly lose any justification in the new scheme, where all services would be working both in states and in central government. Thus, in the new structure, officers would spent part of their time with state government and part with central government.
- I am not sure whether the present system of cadre allocation should be continued in the new structure I am proposing. To me, the question of allocating a state cadre to an officer seems orthogonal to the broad domain based service branches – and therefore, I am neutral to this issue. The new structure will work in both cases – with state cadre allocation or without state cadre allocation.
- Along with this, it will also require that the cadre control of these five services is not vested with any particular department/ministry, but with some other organisation. Presently, IAS officers’ cadre management is handled by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the same organisation can be asked to handle cadre management for other services too. Alternatively, a Civil Services Board can also be set up with required autonomy and independent to take care of cadre management of these service branches and other responsibilities related to service management. This institutional change, in any case, has its own independent justification in terms of administrative reforms of civil services.
- If there is a felt need to have a cadre of organised civil service for any particular ministry/department of the central government, such service should invariably be crated as subordinate service to the respective broad domain based service, i.e., as a group B service – for that particular ministry/department. This is the practice followed in the states and the same should be followed for the central government level too. There is no reason why someone should have a higher status only because she is working in a centrla government department as status and parity has to be based on the type, nature and level of work being performed.
- There are many functional domains and areas which are very technical in nature, and where a generalist – even if he is a specialised generalist, a fox with spine of hedgehog – would not be appropriate at senior management level. This principle must be recognised and accepted. These areas should be out of bound for generalist civil servants – the ones I am dealing here. In such organisations and departments, technical specialists should be given all the control and they can have their own cadre, structure and system. In some cases, this is already being followed – like in Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space etc. This further needs to be extended in appropriate technical domain functions.
Thus, the above institutional structure would create broad domain based service branches. These branches would have the necessary size and structure to form a robust, feasible and well designed cadre of organised civil service branches, taking care of the career progression, experience and exposure, and of opportunities and aspirations of individual officers. The officers of all branches will, working over years, develop a mix of specialized domain knowledge as well as general management skills – the mix which are more important at senior level where inter-agency/domain communication and coordination, strategic thinking, vision and planning, and ability to transfer and share becomes crucial. The proposed design will also help in creating a truly equal branching structure of services, where each branch will find that the system is fair, just, transparent and non-discriminatory, that it provides officers meaningful work and interesting professional challenges, opportunity to excel and showcase their talents, and where every one is important. This structure will thus produce an optimific situation for everyone. There will perhaps be no inter-service rivalries, frustration and demotivation as the reality of inequality will be a thing of the past.
Here I can not emphasise enough the importance of inequality of capabilities and powers, even in perception, on individual well being and performance. Amartya Sen has rightly pointed out that an inequality that can be understood in terms of differences in capabilities and powers that different people end up having … is best understood in terms of its efficiency advantages (Sen, 1995). I should also point out that the fundmental bedrock of any just system is fairness and equality, as has amply been emphasied by various political and social philosophers, and accordingly, my attempt has been to approach the whole exercise of identifying broad domains and reconstituting service branches from what Rawls calls an original position and with a veil of ignorance (Rawls, 2001).
To take this instituional design to the next higher level, if what I am proposing in the following section is also implemented, I feel that a truly professional, efficient and effective civil services cadre design will be achieved. In that eventuality, the situation where one particular service is the most coveted – where every successful candidate wants to joint that branch (presently the IAS), where all other who have not been able to join their top two or three choices of services always feel neglected and discriminated, especially after experiencing the reality of inter-service disparity, and where the choice of a candidate to join IAS or IPS etc. is not determined by her inherent skills, strengths and interests – will be a thing of past. The above service structure would make all services almost equally desirable, and then the successful candidate will be expressing their option and choices on the basis of their true interests, skills and motivations for working in a particular broad domain area. Thus, we will then have situations where someone would choose to join IAS – Human Development branch because she wanted to work mostly for public welfare and public healthcare sectors. Or someone will join IRFS because she wanted to work mostly in public finance and financial regulation sectors. In this way, it will be a fatal blow to the discriminatory and exploitative ‘caste’ system prevalent in the services. However, to reach that level of equality of service branches and the optimific state, I think one last but crucial piece of reform will be required, which I am outlining below.
XV. Who Could be Appointed as District Magistrate?
In this last section of the essay, I would like to broach another new idea. And this is very important, perhaps crucial, though it may not be that easy to get the affected group accept it. IAS fraternity is not going to like it, especially because their monopoly on the post of DM is one of the most important source of their superior identity, hegemony, power and influence in bureaucracy at the cost of other branches, breeding resentment and dissatisfaction in these branches which have to face unfair and discriminatory treatment. This is all the more reason to implement this institutional reform measure. In any case, my purpose of this research essay has been to find out ways for improving the structure and reorganisation of civil services branches, and to strive to make a proposal which has the potential to substantially enhance the governance and service delivery mechanism of Indian bureaucracy.
As I explained in the section related to IAS, the institution of DM is a pivotal one in our country, and rightly, it needs to be continued. IAS officers have monopoly, as of now, on this post. I have outlined in the previous sections that IAS would, and should continue to hold the position of DM/DC in districts.
But this need not be an exclusive preserve of IAS alone, especially in light of the type of reorganisation outlined. Officers from proposed IRFS and IERS should also be appointed as DM/DC. This will not only give officers from these services important and crucial handle in governance and policy implementation, but will also lead to establishment of true parity among services. In a structure where IAS, IRFS, and IERS are all made responsible for broad functional domains at central and state government levels, where these three and other services will be treated equally and fairly for all practical purposes, it makes perfect sense that the crucial post of DM is not kept reserved for IAS alone. In some senses, this recommendation is perhaps the most important measure to be implemented along with the restructuring design I have proposed, and without this, the five broad domain based services branches may not be able to achieve the intended goal of an equal opportunity, professionalised and efficient service branch design.
To make the scheme even better, it may be stipulated that officers of specific domains should ideally be appointed as DM/DC of such district whose major characteristics have closer affinity with those specific domains. For example, a mostly agricultural district or a district with huge iron ore mines can have a DM from IERS. A trading and urban district, with lot of business activity can have a DM from IRFS. Another district with manufacturing or with many poor people or with low public healthcare indices should ideally have an IAS officer as DM.
Obviously, finding out a dominant characteristic will not be a very objective or simple task, and there could be many dimensions of any such characteristics. However, the basic idea is to have a mix of officers from different service branches as DM in districts which best suits their expertise, exposure and their domain strength. Further, these characteristics identification will be a dynamic process, which can and will change over time – an agricultural district developing in to an industrial town and so on.
What about IPS? Should not they also be appointed as DM? Perhaps in those district which are crime prone, or near the sensitive international boarders, or have internal law and order issues? This may not be required, as we already have the institution of SP in districts, which perform almost as important, if not more, function, as that of DM. Therefore, the above exposure may not be required for IPS officers, though in principle, there should be no objection to IPS being appointed as DM. And in case of IFS, their function being totally different, this scheme again may not be very useful for them.
This reform will go a long way in bringing parity among services, in providing equal opportunity, in removing inter-service rivalries and power politics, in bringing a higher level of skill-assignment matching and professional development, and in motivating and encouraging healthy competition among officers, leading to all round improvement in governance and bureaucratic performance.
XVI. Other Alternatives
Looking from a different perspective, what I have proposed in this reorganisation can be considered as a scheme where most of the branches have been given IAS like domains, by merging some of the existing branches, and also by taking away some of the domains from IAS. This indeed is the case as the fundamental issue identified in the previous essay was the actual and existing inequality, disparity and discrimination among service branches despite theoretical parity. And to address this, it is imperative to bring about the parity – in function, operational domain and control – among various services. From yet another perspective, this scheme can be seen as a structure where IAS has been divided in to four major domains – Human development, Economy and Industry, Revenue and Finance, and Environment and Resources – whereby officers then choose one of the domains as their choice of specialisation, and then spent most of their service life in that particular domain. This too, is a valid interpretation. In all fairness, the schema detailed above can, indeed, be interpreted as a four fold vision of IAS in to broad domains, wherein, the present anomalous and subordinate status of other group A services has been remedied by merging/reconstituting them into one of these broad domains.
On the other hand, it could be argued – and has been argued also on many occasions – that IAS is a premium service and needs to be treated as such. As I have already dealt with these kinds of arguments, let me here only say that it is a contention completely devoid of any merit and is plainly implausible. But if, indeed, we are to accept this kind of reasoning and want to have a structure commensurate with this logic, then the solution is perhaps easier. First, there is no need of maintaining and claiming a theoretical parity of different service branches, of maintaining that all group A services are equal, and paying a lip service to the idea of parity, fairness and equality of treatment and opportunity. Secondly, which immediately follows, apropos, is that all group A services have to be redesignated as group B services thereby making the required emphatic statement about the actual higher status of IAS.
Indeed, instead of doing what I have proposed above, downgrading all other services except IAS (and IPS perhaps) to group B level is a viable alternative, and perhaps would also tackle – though unfairly – most of the issued which have been discussed by me in these essays. What is actually required, therefore, is to stop being hypocrite, identify the underlying problem, address the fundamental issues, finalise a scheme for remedy, and then act on that!
There should be no doubt, however, that the recommendations and the reform schema presented in this essay are the best possible solution for a just, fair, refurbished, effective and efficient institutional design.
With this, I have come to the end of the third essay on civil services reform in India!
In the next (and perhaps the last) part of the series, I will hopefully be examining the issues of recruitment and selection, career progression and performance management, rewards and punishments, tenure and stability, lateral entry, equal opportunity and recognition of talents, and related issues for the higher civil services in India.
References
- Berlin Isaiah (1953): The Hedgehog and The Fox; appearing in The Proper Study of Mankind – An Anthology of Essays; Vintage Books – Random House, London. p 436-37
- Chaturvedi Anviti (2017): Police Reforms in India. PRS Legislative Research, New Delhi, p 4.
- Government of India (2009): 10th Report of the 2nd Administrative Reform Commission – Refurbishing of Personnel Administration: Scaling New Heights; Department of Administrative Reforms, Pensions and Public Grievances, Government of India, New Delhi, p 56-58, 181-182
- Kishore Praveen (2012): Administering Goods and Service Tax in India – Reforming the Institutional Architecture and Redesigning Revenue Agencies; Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai; Vol. XLVII, No. 17, p 84-91
- Rawls John (2001): Justice as Fairness – A Restatement; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA, p. 80-84, 85-88, 140-145
- Sen Amartya (1995): Inequality Reexamined; Oxford University Press, New Delhi. p 146
- Skidelsky Robert (2010): Keynes – The Return of the Master; Penguin Books, New Delhi. p 28
- Wood Gordon S. (2011): The Idea of America – Reflections on the Birth of the United States; Penguin Books, New York. p 1-2
(Word Count: Approx 13,000)
Development and Governance 