IAS probationers get the first view from the top
Allowing new recruits of the Indian Administrative Service a sneak peek into the functioning of the Union Government before they take up positions with State cadres should help build a more harmonised and better in-sync bureaucracy over the years. Starting this Thursday, the first batch of 158 IAS recruits has taken up duty at a handful of Central ministries. The officers will be working in New Delhi for the next three months and have been given the title of Assistant Secretaries — a new position created for this purpose, so as not to disturb existing hierarchies. It is hoped that working with the Union Government will give them a holistic view of administration, bureaucracy, governance and law-making from the national level. This pan-India perspective should come in handy when the officers move to State capitals or take up field work. Often in such situations, it is easy to let local conditions and compulsions drown out the larger picture. This leads to haphazard and disjointed decision-making processes. The Delhi stint should change that, especially with regard to work done by Ministries that have a pronounced Central component, such as the Ministries of Rural Development, Agriculture, Health and Family Welfare, Forests, Environment and Climate Change, Water Resources and Human Resource Development.
Moreover, the profile of the average IAS officer has been evolving. Under the British Raj, an officer of the Indian Civil Service, the predecessor of the IAS, was an Oxbridge-educated Briton who had passed a highly competitive examination, which was not even given to Indians. later, when Indians were officially allowed into the Service, it was still incredibly difficult for them to make the cut. Those who did break the proverbial glass ceiling came from extremely privileged backgrounds — a good example is Satyendranath Tagore of the illustrious Tagore family. Better known as Rabindranath Tagore's brother, he was the first Indian to join the ICS. For many years after Independence, the ICS, now renamed IAS, remained a bastion for the elite even as the Government consistently made efforts to bring in under-represented groups and communities. Those efforts have now paid off and there are many ICS officers today who come from small towns and villages. These officers bring to the table an inherent grassroots knowledge that cannot be taught in classrooms. However, they also need to be equipped with a pan-India perspective, and this is where the short Delhi tenure should make a difference. Moreover, many officers joining the IAS today are specialists — with professional degrees in management, medicine, engineering etc. They too will benefit from this top-down view of the governance model.
Up until now, IAS officers were given Central deputation only after nine years in service. This meant that a mid-career professional, who had no experience in national-level administration, was being thrust into a high level, Central position for which he surely could have been better prepared. Under the new system, all recruits will get Central-level training early on. They will undergo basic training, do the mandatory Bharat Darshan and then return for specialised training. Afterwards, instead of being posted to the States, they will work in New Delhi.