A K Bhattacharya: No civil service reforms

RAISINA HILL

All suggestions to introduce greater accountability in the bureaucracy and to incentivise performance have been junked.

Reforming civil services was one of the key priority areas for Manmohan Singh when he took charge of the United Progressive Alliance government as its prime minister. Empowering district magistrates "" who are the backbone of administration in towns and cities "" became an article of faith for Dr Singh. He convened meetings with IAS officers, asked them to be bold and decisive. A new vision of a rejuvenated bureaucracy was raised. Even the system for evaluating civil servants was proposed to be strengthened.

Two years and three months later, the only reform in civil services "" that is if you wish to call that reform "" has been the announcement of the Sixth Pay Commission to raise the salaries of government employees. Nobody now has any inkling of what has happened to the Surendra Nath committee report, which had made many eminently sensible recommendations to introduce greater accountability, incentivise performance and encourage specialisation as well as enhancement of domain knowledge of civil servants.

And if you consider what has happened with regard to some of the key appointments with the central government in recent months, it becomes fairly apparent that civil service reforms are now on the back burner. Take a look at a few of these decisions. Finance Secretary Adarsh Kishore is now being nominated to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an executive director. Why Adarsh Kishore? Those in the know will explain that he was one of the top contenders for the post of the Cabinet Secretary. But Dr Singh decided to extend the tenure of the current Cabinet Secretary, B K Chaturvedi, by a year. That meant curtains for Kishore, who would be superannuating by the end of December this year. So, the explanation is that the IMF job is being given to him by way of some compensation.

What happened to the Vajpayee government's decision or view that bureaucrats approaching retirement should not be considered or preferred for such jobs on the boards of IMF and the World Bank? Isn't that the reason why B P Mishra, an IAS officer belonging to the Union Territories cadre, was sent to Washington as an executive director on the IMF board? Mishra at the time of his foreign posting had two more years to go before retirement. So, instead of some finance ministry bureaucrat approaching retirement, Mishra got the opportunity to spend the last two years of his service in Washington. What's more, he got one year extra after his retirement. Now, Kishore will get almost three years extra.

The larger question is why Chaturvedi's tenure had to be extended after it was broadly agreed that the cabinet secretary will enjoy a minimum fixed tenure of two years. Similarly, there is no reason why the current foreign secretary's tenure should be extended. One might argue that certain tenures need to be extended when they are handling a critical issue that requires them to be at the helm till that critical issue is resolved. But such arguments fly in the face of the established belief that civil servants are trained to provide continuity in governance irrespective of any change in personnel. More importantly, such decisions create other distortions down the line and force the government to initiate more inappropriate moves to please those who may have been adversely affected by extending the tenure of an incumbent.

There is yet another problem that arises from such tenure extensions. A minimum tenure for senior secretary-level posts also enhances the level of commitment from the beneficiaries. Mind you, such enhanced commitment is offered more to the political leadership that facilitated the extended tenure. This might be a different type of committed bureaucracy.

The Indian government has so far judiciously avoided committed bureaucracy. There are many advantages of a certain inevitability of a bureaucrat retiring on a certain pre-determined date. This ensures that bureaucrats are free to offer opinion free from prejudices and advise action that is in public interest. But extended tenures create new loyalties, which are not always healthy for a functioning democracy. Worse, if we have only a few bureaucrats with committed tenures, conflicts within the civil service are bound to arise. That can be another serious blow to governance.