POV: LATERAL CONFUSION?
The first thing to understand about the ‘new’ move by the government to recruit talent from outside the civil service is that it is not new. It has happened in countless—and some high profile—cases in the past. All governments have sought to reinforce the bureaucracy by lateral intrusion and justified it on the ground that those so brought in have an expertise that is not available in the existing system.
In principle, what the government is seeking to do is neither without precedent, nor unwarranted. With the rapid development of technology and the increasing complexity of the economic and international ecosystem, experts with proven domain experience can contribute to greater efficiency in decision-making. Any reservations on this initiative are then not about the intent but about the process.
The government advertisement, issued by the Department of Personnel and Training, seeks to recruit 10 ‘outstanding individuals’, who are ‘talented’ and ‘motivated’ and wish to ‘contribute to nation building’. Their expertise would be required in areas of revenue, financial services, economic affairs, agricultural cooperatives and farmer’s welfare, road transport and highways, shipping, environment, forest and climate change, new and renewable energy, civil aviation and commerce. They must be at least 40 years old and ready to serve on a contractual basis for three to five years.
Questions arise precisely because of this kind of generalised formulation. Each of the sectors mentioned is important. But they are far too generic in definition. What, for instance, is meant by an ‘expert’ in ‘economic affairs’ or ‘commerce’? These sectors constitute full-fledged ministries, whereas the requirement must obviously be for individuals who can fill up clearly defined and specific areas of work, where existing expertise is lacking. In this sense, the DoPT circular is lazy, lacking detailed analysis of the exact nature of the expertise required.
Secondly, how will the selection be made? The circular says that it will be done by a committee. Who will constitute this committee? What will be the criteria to guide it in deciding why one candidate is better than the other? Such questions acquire salience because the entire exercise will get tainted if there are allegations of subjectivity or lack of transparency or the operation of ‘extraneous factors’ that have nothing to do with objective merit.
In the case of the current government, the charge of extraneous factors—such as placing individuals with a certain ideological hue in key positions—has long been on the table, and not always without justification. Perhaps it would have been better if the selection had been left to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). This would have avoided the almost inevitable critique about bias or subjectivity. After all, the UPSC selects the entire senior civil service through a transparent process where the entrants go on to occupy the highest decision-making posts in the bureaucratic system. Why could this task—if being done in an institutionalised and not ad hoc manner—not have been outsourced to it?
Nor should this step be taken as a vote of no confidence in the existing bureaucracy. The civil service consists of specific sectors. Within each of these, there are avenues of specialisation. The charge that ‘generalists’ are incapable of acquiring specialised expertise is wrong. Generalists in key positions are, by exposure and training, specialists who know how to operate the bureaucratic system to optimal efficiency. Babus are like litmus paper. They take on, in terms of performance and delivery, the direction and goals provided by the political leadership. There is little achieved by passing the buck to the bureaucracy, which has some fine officers.
However, in today’s world, no one can deny the need for lateral entrants with specific domain experience. But it would be better if they are recruited as consultants, with a clearly defined job profile based on verifiable need, and in a manner that is transparently based on merit. Otherwise, what has been done in the past will be repeated, but this time with unnecessary controversy.
It would have been better if the lateral entry selection had been left to the UPSC. This would have avoided the critique about subjectivity