As against present 600 plus officers of the elite IFS, the govt plans to recruit 520 more by 2018 while raising the strength of IFS-B cadre by another 380

Nearly six years after national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon raised alarm bells as then foreign secretary about not enough diplomats to conduct India’s foreign policy, the government has woken up to double its diplomatic corps in the next five years. As against present 600 plus officers of the elite Indian Foreign Service (IFS), the government plans to recruit 520 more by 2018, while raising the strength of IFS-B cadre by another 380. This increase of 900 officers will be able to barely take the load of 169 Indian missions and embassies abroad.

The acute shortage over the years was caused by selection of barely 20 for the IFS cadre from the combined civil services as most of the candidate’s first two preferences were IAS and IPS. The External Affairs Ministry has advocated a separate examination for the IFS to quickly increase the strength of the Indian diplomatic corps.

Sources in the ministry said the new recruitment will be based on the candidates selected for their expertise in different fields such as trade, environment, disarmament and security. The ministry has also drawn up a mandatory mid-career training programme that envisages the diplomats undergo training thrice during the career. The IFS officers will also be required to attain expertise in the new fields the Indian mission has to deal with like global warming and other issues that dominate the global discourse.

It was Menon who sought help of Parliament’s standing committee in 2007 to help in quick increase of the diplomatic corps as he pointed out that the number of officials in his ministry has shrunk even while India’s place in the global affairs has grown. He then pointed out the imbalance glaring at any meeting with the big powers as they have an average of 10 diplomats on the table as against four or even less at the Indian side. Many embassies in Delhi have more people than the staff in the concerned department in the ministry dealing with them.