Reforms In The Indian Civil Services: A Study of 21st Century Recommendations and Implementation.

Abstract

The Civil Services are one of the most important cogs in the machine that is the Indian ‘system’. In this country of extreme diversity and socio-cultural variations, the civil services, right from old times, have managed to maintain order within chaos. As the nature of politics and organisation of society and government changed over several years, it became imminent for the bureaucracy to reinvent itself as well. In India’s case, this reinvention was in the hands of the democratic government – the same that granted the bureaucracy protection through Constitutional provisions when India became an independent nation. The bureaucracy, however, remained pretty much the same after India’s independence. Reforms in the bureaucracy have at best been incremental, and very far away from the proposed revolutionary changes. This research study proposes to study the nature of these changes in recent times – more specifically between 2004 and 2016, in order to gauge how the government reacts and promulgates reforms in the civil services. This study involves particularly the Second Administrative Reforms Commission Reports and tracks the recommendations within the domain of autonomy, accountability, tenures and training for the civil services. The research method of document analysis is employed to study government orders, notifications and legislative measures taken in furtherance to efforts of reforming the civil services. The government was found wanting in the implementation process, with less than a third of the total recommendations studied having been implemented. The government’s lowest priorities were in the sector of reforms in autonomy, with most recommendations having been rejected. The study also involved the circulation of a structured questionnaire among civil servants across the country. Officers across the board unanimously called for the fixation of minimum tenures for civil servants, and overwhelmingly supported greater autonomy of the Services. A majority also was in favour of statutory separation of powers between the civil servants and politicians, although it did not support the formation of an independent regulatory body to ensure better accountability. On the issue of lateral entry, the debate among civil servants remains heavily contested, as just a little over half of the respondents felt that lateral entry should be allowed. This study provides avenues for delving further into the politics of the reformation process, and what are the possible influencing factors.