Extend fixed tenure for secretaries

Frequent changes of heads have caused great harm to the functioning of central ministries

Of the 16 secretaries appointed by the Union government last week to head different central ministries, about a dozen of them will have more than two years of service left before they superannuate in the normal course. This is a welcome sign. Secretaries should have at least a minimum of two years at the helm of a central ministry to provide continuity and stability in decision making, which should hopefully result in improved efficiency and performance.

While the government should be complimented for this, a few caveats need to be entered to facilitate a more reasoned assessment of the situation. The objective of providing continuity and stability at the top is desirable to help bring about an improvement in governance. But there are at least three reasons why last week’s decision may fail to yield the desired outcomes.

One, it would be erroneous to conclude that there will be continuity in leadership in these dozen ministries. There is no guarantee that some of these secretaries would not be moved out of their current secretarial assignments and sent to some other ministry before their superannuation. Such transfers have taken place in the past and cannot be ruled out in the coming 24 months. 

Thus, merely the fact of these secretaries having more than two years of service before they turn 60 years of age does not necessarily mean that they will have a two-year uninterrupted stay at the head of the same ministry. For that to happen, it would be necessary to have fixed tenure for appointments to secretary-level jobs in all key central ministries.

At present, only four secretary-level jobs have been given fixed tenure of two years — Cabinet Secretary, Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary. It is now time to consider extending the same principle to other key central ministries. There is no reason why the same principle should not be followed for the Finance Secretary, the Revenue Secretary, the Commerce Secretary, the Agriculture Secretary, the Telecom Secretary or the Environment Secretary.

Two, the idea of fixed tenure is even more relevant for departments or divisions within the central ministries. These departments have direct operational responsibilities and frequent changes of their heads have caused immense harm to their functioning. The average tenure of a chairperson of the Railway Board has always been less than two years. The average tenure is even less for chairpersons of the Central Board of Excise and Customs or the Central Board of Direct Taxes.

The government must take the tough call of creating a system of providing minimum three-year tenure for heads of such departments, even though this might pose a personnel challenge of growth and career aspirations of junior officials. These challenges must be tackled and the government must explore alternative career paths for those who cannot make it to the top by offering them options such as voluntary separation or secondment to private sector jobs without any impairment to their superannuation benefits. But allowing these departments to be headed by a succession of chairpersons for just a few months is a serious weakness that must be addressed.

Three, offering fixed tenure for secretaries or department heads will not be enough. A simultaneous screening exercise must be undertaken at various stages of the officials’ career so that they could be suitably groomed for different kinds of jobs. At present, most Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers follow the same path that takes them eventually to the rank of a secretary before they reach their retirement age. Not much effort is made to help officials gain expertise in a specific area or a ministry in the early stages of their career and allow them to pursue that path.

It is time this practice was reviewed. As at the start of 2017, almost 29 per cent of the total strength of IAS officers belonged to the age group of 56 to 60 years. Officials in the 51 to 55 years age group accounted for another 18 per cent. If the idea of fixed tenure is enforced, some of these officials will gain in terms of a longer service and others may lose out. But the real challenge will be to manage the 20 per cent officials, who are in the age group of 41 to 50 years and some of whose growth path would be blocked in view of the longer tenure of their seniors.

The government, therefore, needs to evaluate the performance of these 985 officers and groom them to take up newer responsibilities in areas where they have earned experience and developed specific skills. Since secretary-level openings would be fewer, the government could offer some of them private sector options without undermining their superannuation benefits.