As per media reports, Modi government has proposed a change in the process of Civil Services recruitment and planned to make Academy training as the fourth leg of this grueling exam. This has once again put the spotlight on the issue of Civil services reform on which nearly 600 committees have been set up till date but none could find a way to out of the dustbin. All the reports became a victim of politician-bureaucracy tussle and power games. Politicians have a vested interest in keeping the door of civil servants in their hand so that they can tighten the noose whenever necessary. On the other hand, any reform is prone to be looked at from political coloring. Possibly this is the reason, Mr. Gandhi has come out against this move and calling it BJP's tactics to subvert the merit.
In this backdrop, let us evaluate the plusses and minuses of this move.
Good move:
FC had become a picnic duration for many candidates. The culture of drugs sex alcohol and class bunks is no unknown in the academy. This acts as a detox or relaxation phase for people who look forward to settled life after many years of cut-throat competition. The training academy had been sending reports each year regarding declining standards of candidates who come for training. Hopefully, with this reform measure people will start taking it seriously.
This move will also play a role in diluting the role of Interview. The interview is playing too crucial a role in selection and service allocation. Despite all the experiences of Civil servants in dealing with interview candidates day in and day out, the method cannot be termed objective. In many cases, the same person who appears in the interview in two different years has a wide variation in interview scores. Internal biases, frozen mindset and 30 minutes of luck play too crucial a role in deciding your rest of the life. Moreover, the relative contribution of Interview is disproportionate. Though on paper interview is just 275 marks out of 1975 marks but in practice, the interview does not just make or break but it also a like a veto for you to get into service of your choice. Taking a lead of 50 or 60 marks in Mains require disproportionately high effort and getting the same lead in the interview is just a matter of 30 minutes performance.
And lastly, It'll reduce the news hype and sensationalism around Civil services specifically IAS. Too much social respect and felicitation without even any real contribution to society result in inflated ego and a false sense of enlightenment. Hopefully, some focus could be taken away and people will stop risking their career for such thing.
But does this mean that all the political brouhaha and allegation of merit compromise are baseless? Well in a vibrant system like India where ideological fights are more visible than in any other democracy in the world, such allegations cannot be brushed aside under the carpet. We need to evaluate the downside as well.
Downside:
Yes, it is true that transparency in the new system needs to be monitored. Else some bias may creep in allocation. Already there is a perceived fear in the society with regard to institutional hijacking by a particular political agenda be it Supreme court or office of governor or award ceremonies. Therefore, the government should come out with the fool-proof plan on the modalities of things instead of proposing a demonetization type potpourri.
The most damaging part of this entire exercise is from the perspective of the candidates who prepare for the exam. The delay in service allocation means people will further go through 4 months of the grueling process. There is no guarantee if this extra level of scrutiny will add any other aspect of wisdom and testing which UPSC might have missed. But it'll increase the length of exam duration. Just like India has got tired of eternal election mode, even the candidates may develop severe mental and physical fatigue due to the lengthy process of examination. In fact, one positive aspect of FC is it acts as a cooling off period where candidates live in a relaxed settled atmosphere and grasp the finer points of administration. It helps in taking away the exam fatigue and facilitate bonhomie between young lads who are going to serve at important positions in the system.
But the question we ought to ask ourselves is whether this is the panacea. Is this the magic wand we were looking for? Is the issue of civil services reform so small? Was it for this nearly 600 committees have been set up? Why are we so hesitant in taking big-ticket reforms? The need of the hour is to bring bigger reform along with this like independent transfer and appointment process just like for IRS cadre and as per recommendations of second ARC Report. Another could be brining police service reforms as per Prakash Singh case judgment. This will help in bringing down the scale of corruption and give greater stability to the life of civil servants. Further, bringing specialized cadre and recruit more people from private sector or academia at a mid-service level as per Niti Ayog recommendations may further help in making system more diverse and expertise oriented. The unnecessary perks are given to civil servants and the king like status given to them may be divided into 3-4 equal rank officers so that powers do not get centralized at the district level and all the media hype created around IAS will melt down. A beginning of this could be done by taking away the beacon and the big Bungalow. Just give a 4 BHK quarter to IAS. What is the need of big bungalow? Tap corruption by bringing technology and social audit mechanism in the work of IAS. In addition, any talk of reforms will be incomplete without reforming the state level agencies as they have become the real den of corruption.
A lot more needs to be done. But as the philosophy goes, good should never become enemy of best. All one can wish is that good should not turn out to be a half cooked plan and whatever changes occur, transparency, rule-orientation and objectivity should not be compromised. Hail modi, Hail UPSC and Hail the candidates.
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