Role of Civil Services

Civil Services

In a democracy, the civil services play an extremely important role in the administration, policy formulation and implementation, and in taking the country forward towards progress and development.

Democracy is an egalitarian principle in which the governed elect the people who govern over them. There are three pillars of modern democracy:

1. Legislature
2. Executive
3. Judiciary

The civil services form a part of the executive. While the ministers, who are part of the executive, are temporary and are reelected or replaced by the people by their will (through elections), the civil servants are the permanent part of the executive.

• The civil servants are accountable to the political executive, the ministers. The civil services are thus, a subdivision under the government.
• The officers in the civil services form the permanent staff of the various governmental departments.
• They are basically expert administrators.
• They are sometimes referred to as the bureaucracy or also the public service.

Importance of Civil Services

• The civil service is present all over India and it thus has a strong binding character.
• It plays a vital role in effective policy-making and regulation.
• It offers non-partisan advice to the political leadership of the country, even in the midst of political instability.
• The service gives effective coordination between the various institutions of governance, and also between different departments, bodies, etc.
• It offers service delivery and leadership at different levels of administration.

Constitutional Provision Related to Civil Services

• As per Articles 53 and 154, the executive power of the Union and the States vests in the President or Governor directly or through officers subordinate to him. These officers constitute the permanent civil serviceand are governed by Part XIV of the Constitution (Services under the Union and States (Article 308-323)).
• Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules:The manner in which the officers are required to help the President or Governor to exercise his/her executive functions is governed by these Rules.
• Article 311 – Dismissal, removal or reduction in rank of persons employed in civil capacities under the Union or a State.
• Article 312 – All India Services.

Function of Civil Services

• Basis of Government: There can be no government without administrative machinery.
• Implementing Laws & Policies: Civil services are responsible for implementing laws and executing policies framed by the government.
• Policy Formulation: The civil service is chiefly responsible for policy formulation as well. The civil service officers advise ministers in this regard and also provides them with facts and ideas.
• Stabilising Force: Amidst political instability, the civil service offers stability and permanence. While governments and ministers can come and go, the civil services is a permanent fixture giving the administrative set up a sense of stability and continuity.
• Instruments of Social Change & Economic Development: Successful policy implementation will lead to positive changes in the lives of ordinary people. It is only when the promised goods and services reach the intended beneficiaries, a government can call any scheme successful. The task of actualising schemes and policies fall with the officers of the civil services.
• Welfare Services: The services offer a variety of welfare schemes such as providing social security, the welfare of weaker and vulnerable sections of society, old-age pensions, poverty alleviation, etc.
• Developmental Functions: The services perform a variety of developmental functions like promoting modern techniques in agriculture, promoting the industry, trade, banking functions, bridging the digital divide, etc.
• Administrative Adjudication: The civil services also perform quasi-judicial services by settling disputes between the State and the citizens, in the form of tribunals, etc.

Importance of Civil Services - Factors Contributes

• The scientific and technological development: They have led to revolutionary changes in transportation and communication system. The invention of telephone, telegraph, railways and airways has made big government and large scale administration possible.
• Industrial revolution: It brought about certain changes in society. It led to the growth of large scale industries and factory production, over-crowded industrial towns and urban slums. The factory system also resulted in certain evils such as growth of capitalism, large scale unemployment, exploitation of labour etc. In the interest of socio-economic justice, governments in the developed and developing countries have to assume new responsibilities to set right the bad effects of the above evils. The tasks and responsibilities as well as the importance of civil service have thus vastly increased.
• Economic Planning: Modern governments have resorted to planning as a method of achieving economic development and goals of welfare state. The new responsibilities relating to planning activities, i.e., plan formulation and implementation and creation of elaborate necessary administrative machinery have naturally widened the scope of public administration. However, in the new liberalized economic reforms, planning as a method of economic development and the administrative functions relating to it are gradually getting diminished.
• Calamities and crisis: Natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, droughts and cyclones have also enhanced the importance of civil services. In the event of occurrence of such natural calamities, the public administrators have to act quickly and undertake rescue operations in order to prevent loss of life and property of the affected people. Thus crisis management is an important function of public administration.
• Population and the problems of metropolitan cities: The rapid growth of population in almost all the countries of the world, especially in developing countries, has complicated the problems of providing food, shelter, education, health and sanitation etc. to the people. Also, the growth of metropolitan cities has created certain problems peculiar to them. Some of the problems include congestion, growth of slums, housing scarcity, insufficient water supply, increasing urban crime rate etc. $he responsibility for tackling these acute social and economic problems has resulted in the increase in the sphere of activity of civil service.
• Emergence of welfare state: As a welfare state, governments have to perform major functions such as dispenser of social services, a provider of essential commodities, a manager of key industries and banking services and a controller and regulator of private economic enterprises and activities. This has naturally increased the importance of civil service.

Problems in Civil Services

• Lack of professionalism and poor capacity building.
• An ineffective incentive system that does not reward the meritorious and upright civil servants.
• Rigid and outmoded rules and procedures that do not allow civil servants to exercise individual judgement and perform efficiently.
• Lack of accountability and transparency procedure, with no adequate protection for whistle-blowers.
• Political interference causing arbitrary transfers, and insecurity in tenures.
• An erosion in ethics and values, which has caused rampant corruption and nepotism.
• Patrimonialism (a form of governance in which all power flows directly from the leader).
• Resistance to change from the civil servants themselves.

Politicization of Bureaucracy

• Over the years, whatever virtues the IAS possessed – integrity, political neutrality, courage and high morale – are showing signs of decay. Some civil servants are deeply involved in partisan politics: they are preoccupied with it, penetrated by it, and now participate individually and collectively in it.
• One of the main reasons why systemic reforms have not been taken up earnestly by the states is the lack of stable tenure for IAS officials.
• Transfers have been used as instruments of reward and punishment, as tools for controlling and taming the bureaucracy. There is no transparency, and in the public mind transfer after a short stay is categorised as a stigma.
• Officers who are victimised are not in a position to defend themselves. Internally the system does not call for any reaction to explain one’s conduct, while externally public servants are debarred from going public to defend themselves.
• A high degree of professionalism ought to be the dominant characteristic of a modern bureaucracy. The fatal failing of the Indian bureaucracy has been its low level of professional competence.
• A civil servant spends more than half of his tenure on policy desks where domain knowledge is a vital prerequisite.
• However, in the present environment prevailing in the States there is no incentive for a young civil servant to acquire knowledge or improve his skills. There is thus an exponential growth in both, his ignorance and arrogance.
• For instance, it is said that in the house of an IAS officer one would find only three books – the railway timetable, because he is always being shunted from one post to the other, a current affairs magazine because that is his level of interest, and of course, the civil list – that describes the service hierarchy!
• An important factor which contributes to the surrender of senior officers before political masters is the total lack of any market value and lack of alternative employment potential.
• Of late, some senior officers are being hired by the private sector, not so much for their professionalism, but for their ability to influence government in favour of the hiring company.
• Bureaucrats remain busy in tadbir management instead of trying to improve their capabilities since party “loyalty” and strength of tadbir are the only requirements for getting promotion.
• The most threatening thing is that thousands of brilliant civil servants have been penalised from time to time in the name of “loyalty.” Such a situation will certainly discourage qualified and talented graduates from competing for the civil services.

Recommendations of 2nd ARC for civil service reforms:

• Bringing Accountability in Public Services:
• Multi-dimensionality of accountability
• system of two intensive reviews
• Civil Services Law
• Emphasize Performance:
• Making appraisal more consultative and transparent,
• performance management system (PMS),
• “360 degree” performance appraisal mechanism
• Competition and Specialist Knowledge for Senior Level Appointments:
• 2nd ARC identified 12 domains,
• Surendra Nath Committee (2003)
• Hota Committee (2004)
• Effective Disciplinary Regime:
• Minimum statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedures.
• Consultation with the UPSC should be mandatory
• Transforming Work Culture:
• Multi-level hierarchical structure should be reduced.
• Government offices should be modernized,
• Need to create a lean, thin and efficient government machinery
• Streamline Rules and Procedures:
• Rules should be updated, simplified
• Privatization and Contracting Out:
• competition between public and private sector providers have improved cost effectiveness and service quality.
• Adoption of IT and E-Governance:
• Robust Vigilant Mechanism, Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMs)
• Implementation of e-Office.
• Stability of Tenure:
• Fixed tenure of at least three years
• Civil Services Board / Establishment Board.
• Depoliticization of Civil Services:
• Need to safeguard the political neutrality and impartiality, “abuse of authority unduly favouring or harming someone”,
• Obstruction of justice should be classified.
• Capacity building
• Training
• Code of Ethics,
• Mid-career exams/skill assessment

Reforms

Mission Karmayogi - Civil service reform

• It is a comprehensive reform of the capacity-building apparatus at the individual, institutional and process levels for efficient public service delivery.
• It objective is to make civil servants shift his scope from rules-based to roles-based,
• The National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) was launched as a new national architecture for civil services.

Way forward:

• In a democracy it is essential that the politicians play the role of masters assisted by the civil servants. However, the extent of interference of the bureaucracy in the affairs of the state is crossing every limit.
• This is mostly because of the bow-down policy and inefficiency of our political leadership.
• The political leaders should be able to spell out their requirement to the bureaucracy and distinguish the jurisdiction of the bureaucracy in the affairs of the state.
• Only then will the bureaucracy remain confined within their jurisdiction and consider themselves as the servants of the people.
• After the first ten years of service each IAS officer should be encouraged to specialise in one or two chosen sectors by not only giving them long tenures but even permitting them to join academic or research organisations where they could improve their intellectual skills.
• a model in which politicians would be casteist, corrupt and will harbour criminals, whereas civil servants will continue to be efficient, responsive to public needs and change-agents cannot be sustained indefinitely. In the long run administrative and political values have to coincide.
• In his article demanding ban on bureaucrats entering politics the retired high level bureaucrat Madhav Godbole has stated that politics and administration should have separate status and if it is jeopardized, the very spirit of the constitutional provision would be eroded.

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