Lateral entry

“It’s motivated with focus on allowing every Indian citizen a fair chance to ensure their growth depending on their potential,” he added.

The applications for ‘lateral recruitment of senior positions in the government of India’ can be sent from June 15 to July 30.

“We already have two secretaries who are on contract — drinking water and sanitation, and Ayush. Before that we had a power secretary, who was recruited in the same manner,” said C Chandarmouli, secretary (personnel). Chandramouli was referring to Parameswaran Iyer, who took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and then returned from the US to head the Narendra Modi government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission and was last year, appointed secretary in the drinking water and sanitation ministry for two years.

Another example is “Vaidya” Rajesh Kotecha, who was first appointed as special secretary in the ministry of Ayush and later promoted as secretary in July last year. Kotecha, a former vicechancellor of Jamnagar-based Gujarat Ayurveda University and an Ayurvedic doctor, has been given charge for three years. But a joint secretary rank official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, added that there might have been earlier instances of individual ministries advertising for a particular post, but that this is the first time that the ministry of personnel has collectively sought applications for 10 Js-rank posts in various departments.

“Our internal consultations are on. The advertisement has come this morning. We have not structured our response,” said Sanjay Bhoosreddy, secretary of the IAS association said.

But a senior officer of the association said on the condition of anonymity that there should be a merit-based exam for lateral entrants.

“This is not a bad idea per se. But we have to see the fine prints. There should be some meritbased exams for the lateral entrants. The appointment should only be given by a body like UPSC. The Centre must judge if the applicants have domain knowledge and experience of working in a government set-up. An NGO and a government are two different ball games. Remember, a civil servant works in villages as well as in cities,” the officer said.

Niti Aayog chief Amitabh Kant said the body’s experience with lateral entry had been extremely good. “They bring in a vast number of fresh and vibrant ideas. This move in the government was long overdue & I welcome it. Will catalyse UPSC entrants to specialise,” he tweeted.

The government notification says those who have been working at “comparable levels in Private Sector Companies, Consultancy Organisations, International/multinational Organisations with a minimum of 15 years’ experience” are eligible to apply and recruitment would for three to five years.

The recruitment will be done on contract basis for three to five years. The vacancies are also open for those who are already working at equivalent level in state governments and Union territories, public sector undertakings, autonomous bodies, universities and research institutes.

The Congress-led UPA government handpicked former Infosys chief Nandan Nilekani to head its ambitious Unique Identification Authority of India, the nodal body for the Aadhaar project.

There have been other examples as well — like chemical engineer Lovraj Kumar, who joined the government and became petroleum secretary during the Janata Party government.

Not everyone backed the move. “Bad and Dangerous move - Government has invited application for 10 posts of Joint secretaries in different ministries under ‘ lateral entry’. Schemes. I strongly oppose the move by passing Regular Route to bring RSS cadet in... Reservation is main casualty,” said CPI(M) MP TK Rangarajan. ing two comes under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Senior municipal corporation officials said it was up to the PWD, which comes under the Delhi government, and the Delhi Traffic Police to ensure the problems are fixed. “Our work is limited to conducting repair work on these stretches. The construction and the enforcement of traffic rules is the responsibility of the PWD and the police,” a senior municipal official said.

Joint commissioner of police (traffic) Garima Bhatnagar said that accidents are caused by two major reasons -- faulty road design or the fault of drivers and other road users. “We have deployed additional force on the most problematic stretches. However, better enforcement can only bring down those accidents where someone is at fault. A comprehensive road safety plan will surely help bring down such accidents,” Bhatnagar said.

The PWD officials said the coming of the Road Safety Policy that is in the pipeline, will come up with tailor-made solutions for these accident prone zones. “We are inspecting each of these black spots and the alterations that need to be made are being noted,” a senior PWD official said. The problem, road safety experts said, was that some of the issues were glaring, and that nothing was being done even though the authorities are well aware of how they could be fixed.

“At Mukundpur chowk, the commuters coming from the Arihant Marg do not have enough road curvature to smoothly join the main road, which is a reason for most crashes,” said Aniruddha Prajapati, road engineering and safety researcher at IITDelhi. At Azadpur, experts said, there was not enough gap between the lights changing from green red, often leading to commuters getting stuck in the middle of the intersection. “If the commuter crosses the signal on green, there is a possibility of them being caught in the middle of the intersection with no warning blinkers,” Prajapati said.

The multiplicity of agencies that undertake construction and repair these spots — making them no one body’s responsibility — further complicates matters. On several of t hese stretches under the north Delhi corporation, footpaths were found to be cracked, drains were open and the desilting was overdue, which makes road safety a hazard particularly during the monsoon because it shrinks the motorable space.

Delhi’s transport minister Kailash Gahlot said a total of 1,584 people were killed in 6,673 road accidents in the city in 2017. He said the government had last year decided to come up with a road safety policy and its draft has been sent to stakeholders for suggestions. But, experts say, even as paperwork continues, nothing is being done on the ground to make driving in Delhi safer.