Abstract
Naresh Chandra Saxena in his book, What Ails IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver combines his great intellectual capability with vast practical experience of working in government. He comes out with number of valuable suggestions to reform the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the governance system in the country. As an insider, who has held key positions in central ministries, coupled with extensive field experience, besides holding the prestigious post of the Director of National Academy of Administration Mussoorie, he is uniquely equipped to author a book on bureaucracy. He is bold and forthright in his views and severely critical of declining standards of current-day members of the elite service, much to their discomfort, even inviting reprimand from some of them.
Civil services play a critical role in good governance. The IAS is the country’s premier service, from which all top policymaking posts in both Centre and the State Secretariat, as well as field jobs such as district collectors, are drawn. Saxena makes a critical analysis of various social service programmes launched by government in the field of education, health, nutrition, public distribution, land reform, etc., and points out their poor outcome in terms of delivery of services. As a result, vast majority of people in the country continue to be trapped in poverty and deprivation. The problem is largely due to bad designing as well as poor implementation, for which the IAS has to share large part of the blame. Saxena questions the commonly held view of members of the service that it is the political culture which is largely responsible for poor outcome of public services delivery and takes a middle of the road position. ‘Granted that radical reforms cannot succeed in isolation without political support, non-performing administration leaves little choice to the politicians but to resort to populist rhetoric and sectarian strategies’.
He discusses the relationship between civil servants and political leadership, which has become highly complex in India’s chaotic democracy. For about two decades post-independence, the political leadership was of high moral standards. There was considerable trust between political executive and civil servants and latter functioned independently providing a reasonably good administration. Subsequently, however, there has been gradual decline in moral compass of political executive, and now they are more interested in seeking political office as a gateway to power, to enable them to advance their personal agenda of acquisition of wealth and distribution of favours. The advent of coalition and weak governments, particularly in states, accelerated the process, as it required pampering the constituencies and vested interest by granting favours as a quid pro quo. The political masters, therefore, have been looking for civil servants who could collaborate and do their bidding, so that they could advance their agenda of holding on to power. This gave rise to a band of civil servants with weak moral fibre to work in collusion with politicians and gain advantage in terms of promotions, cushy postings, foreign assignments and even indulge in corruption and amassing wealth. The political executives often employ arbitrary methods in appointments, promotions and transfers to bring civil servants in line. This has resulted in politicisation of civil services and general decline of ethical and moral standards of public services. While there are many honest and dedicated officers still in the service they have been marginalised or plough a lonely furrow and are unable to make a positive impact on the administrative machinery.
The fundamental requirement of a good civil service is political neutrality and serving the political executive of different persuasions, objectively, without fear or favour. The critical issue, therefore, is how to put in place a civil service where public servants discharge their duties honestly keeping in view public interest as the sole guiding factor. Most countries known for good and efficient public services have enacted values and ethics code to guide the behaviour of public servants. In United Kingdom, a Civil Service Code was promulgated in 1996, and has now been placed on statutory footing under Constitutional and Governance Act of 2010. The Code which forms part of terms and conditions of service lays down four core values: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. In the USA, an Office of Government Ethics was created in 1989, under the Ethics of Government Act, which is responsible for maintaining high standards of ethical behaviour on the part of public servants. A full-fledged ethics infrastructure has been set up, which includes enforceable standards, financial disclosure system, training and counselling and enforcement mechanism. Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada and Singapore, known for high standards of public administration, have enacted similar values and ethics code to guide the behaviour of public servants.
In India, there is a complete absence of a legal framework with a view to promote an honest and value-based civil service. The Government of India has issued Conduct Rules, which are inadequate without an appropriate enforcement mechanism and more in the nature of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ and do not lay down standards of behaviour the public servants are expected to follow. The existing Disciplinary Rules to punish a defaulting public servant are cumbersome and torturous, with numerous safety clauses built in, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to give quick and summary punishment to a delinquent public servant. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission in its report on Ethics in Government and Personnel Administration (2007 and 2008) had recommended that a set of moral values and a specific code of ethics be defined, which must be strictly adhered to by all the civil servants. Unfortunately, no action has been taken. Shouldn’t the IAS whose members hold all policymaking posts in government be held responsible for not enacting an enforceable ethics code for the IAS and other civil services?
The author of the book forcefully pleads for radical reforms in civil services. He points out that, since Independence, a large number of committees and commissions have come out with valuable suggestions for reforming the civil services, but the reforms which have been implemented are ‘soft’ reforms, and government has not addressed critical issues such as lack of accountability, outcome orientation and corruption.
Saxena has, however, not addressed the issue of professionalism and specialisation of the IAS, which is perhaps the main reason for its lackadaisical performance. The task of policymaking in government is complex and needs specialist knowledge of the subject, a point which has been emphasised by various committees and commissions that dealt with administrative reforms since Independence. The First Administrative Reforms Commission, way back in 1969, had emphasised the need for specialisation by civil servants as a prequalification for senior-level posts and suggested that all the services should have an opportunity to enter middle-level and senior-level management positions in the Central Secretariat and the selection should be made by holding mid-career competitive examination to be conducted by UPSC. The Commission wanted the general purpose IAS to be converted into functional service with its sphere of work specified. Subsequently, L.K. Jha Committee (1984), Surendra Nath Committee (2003), Hota Committee (2004) have all emphasised that domain knowledge and merit be the basis for appointment to all senior posts in government, of the level of joint secretary and above. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission (10th Report, 2008) has made similar recommendations and identified 12 domains in which all officers of All India Services and Central Services should specialise and there should be matching of domain competence for all jobs of deputy secretary/director and above, before posting them in Central Secretariat. For appointment to senior administrative posts and above (joint secretary and above), there should be competition among all the services. The Commission suggested that, for some posts in higher administrative grade and above (additional secretary and above), recruitment could be made through competition from open market as well.
Due to the IAS’s hold on the government policymaking and its powerful lobby, the recommendations of high-powered committees have been scuttled, and the country continues to be governed by a generalist civil service. Members of specialised services feel demotivated when a generalist officer with hardly any knowledge of the nitty gritty of a particular department is posted to head it, bypassing claims of its meritorious officers with years of distinguished service. The Chairman of 7th Pay Commission while examining the issue of inter-service parity observed,
The main cause of the resentment among services is that over a period of time IAS has arrogated to itself all power of governance and relegated all other services to secondary position. All posts covering majority of domains are today manned by the IAS, be it technical or administrative which is the main cause of grievance. It is time that government take a call that subject domain should be the criteria to man the posts and not a generalist. (Government of India, 2015, p. 185)
The present NDA government has recently inducted about a dozen professionals as joint secretaries in some ministries through lateral entry. This measure is looked with scepticism by some services. While the move to bring young professionals possessing domain expertise is welcome, it needs to be recognised that an ad hoc measure, without systemic reform, is not likely to improve public services. Britain, from whom we have inherited the present administrative system, completely overhauled the structure of public services as a part of New Public Management (NPM) reform when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. The key features of NPM are devolution of authority and substantially freeing up of centrally imposed rules on staffing, budgetary and procurement matters; emphasis on performance and imposing accountability on public officials for delivering results; customer focus and introduction of Citizen’s Charter. A key feature of reform is the introduction of competition in civil services and downsizing it. As part of public service reform, a Senior Civil Service (SCS) has been created with the idea of selecting the very best in society for the most challenging tasks in government at senior level and form them into a unified and cohesive group responsible for higher policy level advice, managerial and professional responsibilities. The biggest strength of SCS is its openness, as appointments are made from a wide pool, consisting of people from private sector, the academia, besides civil servants, with relevant experience and competency. Following Britain, other Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Singapore have embraced the philosophy of New Public Management, and recruitment to higher civil service is made through open competition. It is widely recognised that NPM dramatically transformed the public service delivery and has been considered as one of the most successful reform measures in recent decades.
N.C. Saxena’s book presents a remarkable insight into the working of public administration in our country and the role of its most important player: the IAS. Its most important message is if one is a dedicated officer committed to serve the public, s/he can truly serve the country’s hapless millions and bring a change in their life, despite numerous obstacles. By personal example, Saxena demonstrates that if you are honest with a right cause, you can even have a brush with the all-powerful chief minister or even prime minister and come out unscathed. The book is a must read for those who want to understand how the country’s public administration functions and a call to policymakers to bring much needed reform in Indian polity.