Sun rises over domain specialists as generalist bureaucrats find targets difficult and pace too scorching

"In their heyday,” wrote British academic Clive Dewey in his book Anglo Indian Attitudes: the mind of the Indian Civil Service, the hallowed officialdom was “a tiny cadre, a little over a thousand strong, who ruled more than 300 million Indians.” He noted that “each Civilian had an average of 300,000 subjects…”

Over the last century or a little more, the number of civil servants has gone up, but so has the population; the total authorised strength of IAS officers stood at 6,500 as on January 1, 2019. They are expected to govern a population of roughly about 1.380 billion. So, in a sense, Dewey’s observations hold good today as they did of the late 19^th century and early 20^th century India.

If there is anything different, it is India’s aspirations, which a tiny cadre of officials - and generalists to boot - cannot fulfil, unless specialist talent is hired from the private sector, preferably domain knowledge experts, who belong to a stratosphere outside the government.

As things stand now, lack of domain knowledge is a hindrance to effective policy formulation. This has led to situations where policy decisions have become skewed, as they will, when an agricultural expert decides on defence matters or a veterinary doctor supervises the education system and a geography graduate is dictating the health policy. It is in this backdrop that the government’s decision to allow lateral entry into the departments and ministries needs to be seen.

Inducting private talent in a somewhat cloistered government environment is work in progress. Its roots go back to the 1980s, the heyday of the Rajiv Gandhi administration, but its strongest manifestation can be felt now, with the Narendra Modi government determined to reform bureaucracy, thwarted and frustrated by the officialdom’s slow pace of implementing government programmes and plans, which otherwise sound great on files.

Complementing the slow pace, say insiders, is a shortage of ideas, something that the Prime Minister has said publicly on more than one occasion.

In September 2020, the BJP government embarked on its most ambitious project thus far to reform the civil bureaucracy. The Prime Minister, at a Cabinet meeting, approved launching of a Capacity Building Competition.

It’s objectives, according to the official announcement, was to “assist the PM Public Human Resources Council in approving the Annual Capacity Building Plans; to exercise functional supervision over all Central Training Institutions dealing with civil services capacity building; to create shared learning resources, including internal and external faculty and resource centres; to coordinate and supervise the implementation of the Capacity Building Plans with the stakeholder departments; to make recommendations on standardization of training and capacity building, pedagogy and methodology; to set norms for common mid-career training programmes across all civil services and to suggest policy interventions required in the areas of HR Management and capacity building to the government".

At first sight, the language used in the stated objectives of the Capacity Building Competition itself is more akin to a boardroom memorandum than an archetypal decision on a government file. The intent towards greater privatisation is evident.

Now comes the icing on the cake. The man to head this august body is no bureaucrat. An announcement on April 1, said that the Quality Council of India (QCI) chief, Adil Zainulbhai, has been appointed as the chairperson of the Capacity Building Commission, set up under the government's ambitious `Mission Karmayogi’ for introducing major reforms in bureaucracy.

Zainulbhai is a dyed-in-the-wool private sector man, who is on the board of several high-profile companies.

On the same day, Mallika Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director of Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) Limited, was appointed as the chairperson of the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB). This is for the first time that a private sector specialist has been appointed as the head of the PESB, responsible for appointment of top management posts in the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).

Following the Prime Minister’s frontal attack on the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in Parliament in February, the direction of governance is clear – more domain knowledge specialists will be favoured over civil servants, who are basically generalists.

As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi had cut red tape, reduced corruption, and made it easy to do business – despite the hype. His hands-on, aggressive style compelled bureaucrats to move out of their comfort zones and travel to the countryside to monitor state government programmes.

Admirers of the Gujarat business model then were legion. Business leaders, including Tata Group head Ratan Tata, were effusive in their praise. Modi helped Tata Motors establish a factory in Sanand to produce its small car, Nano, in quick time after the company was forced out of West Bengal.

After Tata Motors and Ford, French carmaker Peugeot was building a manufacturing facility at Sanand. Top carmaker Maruti Suzuki established a plant at Becharaji in Mehsana district. Modi turned the region into an auto hub.

Officials from the state were sent out to China to drum up business during the Vibrant Gujarat summits under his watch.

While the Modi government is pushing the induction of outside talent, the fact is that in the past two decades, the Constitution Review Commission (2002), the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008), and the NITI Aayog’s three-year Action Agenda (2017) have all suggested domain specialization instead of generalized competence, looking at the rising complexity of modern-day policymaking.

In April 2019, for the first time, nine private sector experts were selected for appointment as Joint Secretaries in central government departments under the lateral entry template. Those picked up included Amber Dubey - civil aviation; Arun Goel – commerce; Rajeev Saksena- Economic Affairs; Sujit Kumar Bajpayee- Environment, Forest and Climate Change; Saurabh Mishra - Financial Services and Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale- New and Renewable Energy.

Suman Prasad Singh was selected for appointment as Joint Secretary in Road Transport and Highways Ministry, Bhushan Kumar in Shipping and Kokoli Ghosh for Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, a release issued by the UPSC, which selected the candidates, said.

Their backgrounds tell the story. Dubey, was a partner with consultancy firm KPMG and head of aerospace and defence; Bajpayee was Manager (Environment) with NHPC;  Kakoli worked with the Food and Agriculture Organisation; Saksena, during his career in banking/ financial institutions, was actively involved in managing across geographies Japanese, Korean, European and US corporates, while Bhushan Kumar, selected for appointment as Joint Secretary, Shipping Ministry, was CEO and MD at Diamond Shipping, a part of Dubai’s Sharaf Group.

To be sure, those entering through lateral channels are likely to face stiff resistance from IAS officers, who are wont to close ranks when it comes to protecting their turf.

For the lateral entrants, the other disadvantage is that the government machinery is so vast that it could take months, even years, to figure out how things move.

Additionally, in the case of IAS, there is no mechanism for weeding out inefficiencies. Once a candidate clears - arguably the world’s toughest exam - they are assured of promotion throughout their careers, irrespective of their performance. The only disincentive is a fringe posting and that too can be overcome with the help of a pliable politician.

There is no doubt that the IAS is hamstrung by political interference and outdated personnel procedures. The government must adopt safeguards to promote accountability while protecting bureaucrats from political meddling.

In view of the complexity of issues confronting the country, there is little doubt that India needs specialists, as well as individuals from relevant sectors, so that she has diverse talent and varied perspectives in policy formulation and implementation.