Unified civil service
R. SUNDARAM
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Need to put in place a structure which can facilitate drawing upon a larger pool of talent
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A QUESTION has arisen in the context of determination of pay and perquisites of government officers whether the present arrangement is an anachronism of colonial vintage and whether it would be advantageous to restructure the civil services into a single unified civil service providing mobility vertically and horizontally consistent with demands of leadership, domain expertise, training, and experience.
In these days of incessant quest to empower every underprivileged section outside the government, should it not look within to find ways of empowering it at intermediate and lower levels to flatten the pyramid and free the bureaucracy from the grip of seniority?
Among various reforms, unified civil service seems both attractive and urgent. With the availability of enormous computing power, giga level data bases, microseconds search returns and real time networking the processes of positioning the right people in the right jobs is increasingly within reach of any enlightened institution.
With the Right to Information Act in force it appears appropriate now to examine putting in place a structure which can, above all, facilitate drawing upon a larger pool of talent untrammelled by parochial cadre affiliations and year of allotment appellations. Matching job requirements with available persons with appropriate domain expertise, training and experience can be an objective and transparent exercise without intermediation by vested interests.
Performance can be more easily tracked and factored in a larger pool to get the best resources for each and every position. It will be amazing to see how the number of people thrown up for the field of consideration will revolutionise the way talent and merit find acceptance.
With a unified civil service there will be no need to satisfy elements within the government to conduct time consuming rituals such as cadre reviews which are carried out ostensibly to improve efficiency but actually to achieve some parity with services which have a `flexible complementing' system of granting promotions based on mere efflux of time. As we are all looking forward to becoming a society which is multiethnic, multicultural, and a model of inclusiveness, broadbasing the services will have a salutary impact on under-represented sections such as women, Muslims, the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the most backward classes.
Equitable representation
A member of the unified civil service can expect equitable representation in the higher echelons and more importantly, manifest equality of opportunity not only to serve in positions consistent with one's education, training, skills, performance and domain knowledge but also for catering to his needs of training and development. A larger pool will always help in bringing a lot more flexibility to address employees' concerns in transfer and grant of sabbatical and study leave, etc.
Fixing tenures and filling vacancies periodically from a large reservoir of personnel coupled with lateral entry at various levels will ensure greater participation by larger sections of talented persons from academia, media, private sector and volunteers from non-governmental organisations.
Bureaucracy is notorious for its resistance to reforms. The existing superior services are a "marvel and an inspirational model for the rest of bureaucracy — as it sets the conditions and standards for accepting and resisting reform." However, it will be sad if the second Adminstrative Reforms Commission and VI Pay Commission pass up the opportunity to recommend measures to provide a large and flexible, knowledge based, service oriented talent pool for the 21st century management in government.
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