Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated September 23, 1953: Maintaining Standards in Government Service

Editorial Comments: The Punjab Ministry is reported to have taken a strange decision: the age-limit for entry into Government service is to be raised from 27 to 45 years in respect of members of "national organisations". The term "national organisations", includes Harijan Sevak Sangh, the All-India Spinners' Association, the All-India Village Industries Association, the Congress Seva Dal, and the Servants of People Society. No doubt these bodies may look upon their work as national and transcending party interests. But that description will not be generally accepted; and, in the case of the Congress Seva Dal, such a claim would be untenable. It is therefore hardly proper that members of these bodies should be given, by a party Government in office, special advantages in regard to entry into Government service which are not available to others.

Equally open to objection is the proposal to raise the age limit generally, instead of specifying the class or classes of jobs to which the higher age-limits should apply. There are certain services to which people are recruited at ages higher than for routine jobs because the former require longer periods of training or special qualifications. But a general raising of the age limit for members of certain organisations might mean that they would be free to compete even for routine clerical jobs with younger men. This would be unfair and opposed to public policy. An opinion gaining strength is that entrance into public service should be at a comparatively early age, and that the normal qualification should be a completed higher secondary school certificate. Though this proposal is mainly influenced by a desire to prevent people with no special aptitude flocking in for college education, in the fond hope that it will be a passport to a job, it is also intended to help in the reduction of the numbers of the youthful unemployed.

We are ready to grant that there may be members of the Harijan Seva Sangh, the Congress Seva Dal and the other bodies above mentioned, who are exceptionally qualified for particular posts and whom it may be in the public interest to get into Government service by offering special inducements. But there may be others equally worthy outside these organisations in order to exclude the slightest suggestion of patronage, such special terms should be offered only to those who possess the qualifications required, which should be clearly defined. It is best not to import extraneous considerations. Attempts to reward `national services' whether by grant of lands to politicals, or by nominations to the All-India Services for men who had served with the fighting forces in the last World War, have been productive of anything but happy results. While there may be other appropriate and unobjectionable ways of recognising their contribution, these particular methods have roused much justifiable resentment as being unfair to men and women with better claims, and as likely to lower the morale and efficiency of the services.

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