The generalist character of the administrative personnel in India is losing its relevance, given the many emerging challenges.
The need for domain knowledge in Indian Administrative Service personnel is being increasingly felt.
How has the system progressed?
India inherited the civil service system from the erstwhile British.
It was however felt that the colonial civil service system would be unsuitable for politically free and economically poor India.
Renaming of ICS (Indian Civil Service) as IAS, etc had happened, but there had been only little change in practice.
The IAS continue to be deeply hierarchical and rule-bound, and seniority continues to be the basic criterion.
The goal of the training is still that of creating the all knowing “intelligent generalist”.
The service thus holds its generalist character despite the increasing need for domain knowledge in administration.
What is the way forward?
Many incremental changes to policy and government role have happened over the years since the time of independence.
The civil service should thus assess the shift from seniority and experience based system to a domain knowledge based system.
Organisational Change - Change in the organisation of government ministries and departments is essential alongside the change in the character of the personnel system.
This could be carried on by clustering the departments based on their needs , demands and characters.
The clusters may be categorised as security, economy, engineering, energy, social, rural, transport, science and technology, etc.
System - It is suggested that the Indian civil service could adopt the system practised in the defence personnel.
A person joining the Indian Army as an infantry man remains so throughout the career and cannot become an artilleryman, etc.
Similarly, once “streamed”, the civil servants can spend the rest of their careers within the clusters or sectors as specified above.
Training - Training and examination could be made mandatory to reach higher levels in the service.
The academy at Mussoorie could engage in training officers in leadership qualities and more in imparting training in the domain knowledge.
