Editorial: Managing the transition

People with a background in routine administration""where it makes little difference when the incumbent gives way to his or her successor""do not often understand that specialised jobs and organisations require more careful planning and selection for the top jobs. Even in the administrative establishment, the government has seen the folly of promoting people to the rank of secretary some months or even weeks before they are due to retire""a period when they have mostly lost interest in the work to be done and are concerned more with organising their pension papers or, often enough, are busy trying to wangle some post-retirement sinecure. So it is a welcome step that those with less than two years of service left do not make it any more to the rank of secretary; also, key positions like the foreign secretary and cabinet secretary now have the stipulation of a minimum tenure, so that there is time for an appointee to settle into the slot and then hopefully make a difference. While these are changes for the better, they have not been extended to (for instance) the Supreme Court, where the country has in the past watched with some bemusement the spectacle of one Chief Justice after the other coming in and then leaving in a matter of weeks. There are other areas too where there has been no change at all, or where there has even been a slide back.

For example, the chairmanship of the electricity regulator lay vacant for many months, and a new incumbent has only just taken charge""at a time when the power shortage in the country is greater than it has every been. The new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of India remained undecided till the very last minute, causing needless uncertainty in the organisation (and much speculation outside), and preventing any proper briefing and handing over by his predecessor. An important exception to such last-minute haste is of course the defence services, where the government is always at pains to announce the next army (or air force/navy) chief when the incumbent has some weeks to go before retirement. Now the governor of the Reserve Bank of India is due to relinquish office in the first week of September. That leaves about 80 days before a new person takes over. Yet, the country has no idea who this will be. More importantly, the next governor is not being given a chance to prepare himself for the job by being an understudy for a month or two, and getting a thorough briefing on ongoing issues before the formal handing over of the baton. Such a transition stage may not be strictly required if the succession is from within RBI, but since that is not necessarily or even generally the case (C.Rangarajan remains the solitary case of a deputy governor becoming governor; Venugopal Reddy had a stint in between in Washington), a proper succession needs to be planned. With economic management getting more vital and the business of regulation more complex, surely it is time the government did some human resource planning.