Reaching the top job a tough call for civil servants now

The govt is tapping former bureaucrats for information about civil servants when they are empanelled

The Narendra Modi government is breaking with the past while appointing top bureaucrats at the Centre. Calling it a 360-degree appraisal, the government is tapping former bureaucrats to seek information about civil servants when they are empanelled for the post of secretary, additional secretary and even joint secretary, it is learnt.
 
In the usual process, empanelment committees, select secretaries and additional secretaries based on their confidential performance reports made every year. “While earlier, only internal records — stretching over decades — of an IAS were assessed before appointing him secretary or additional secretary, now there’s a lot more asking around to check his integrity and character,” a source in the know said.
 
It is about greater oversight at the time of appointment with the aim to weed out corruption from the system, he pointed out. “This may bring out the warts and pimples that are overlooked in a normal appraisal, so that the honest and the noble make it to the top government posts.”
 
In fact, several prominent ex-bureaucrats have been put in separate groups as per their cadres and batches for giving inputs during the selection procedure. Questions such as “does this officer party a lot”, “does he accept gifts” or “what would be his approach to bribe” are being posed to those who may know. Outsiders, including some former bureaucrats, are getting roped into the system informally, too, as they are made to vet officials who are waiting their turn to become secretary or additional secretary. Phone calls and emails are also being used liberally to get as much information as possible, another source said. And records are being kept about who said what during the vetting process.
 
The Modi government, which is set to complete three years in office next month, has also started to combine batches, so that there’s a wider pool to choose from for secretaries and additional secretaries. This was proposed earlier, too, but was never executed, an official pointed out.
 
“I think it is a better system than what was followed earlier. The past system was an average of marks obtained and since everyone got marks close to 10, the system of selection and empanelment developed serious deficiencies,”
 
K M Chandrasekhar, who was Cabinet secretary during the United Progressive Alliance government, told Business Standard. But he pointed at the shortcoming of the process being used by the National Democratic Alliance government. “It gives no or inadequate weight to annual performance appraisal, since selections, from what I understand, are made more on the basis of impressions gathered rather than painstaking scrutiny of performance.”
 
While maintaining that annual performance appraisals are important, Chandrasekhar said the format should be changed to include self-appraisal, focusing on real administrative and field achievements of the officer, reviewed by his reporting authority. He added that he had suggested changes to the Prime Minister’s Office when he was the Cabinet secretary, but those were never implemented. Another official argued that the new system is not 360-degree appraisal in the corporate sense of the word because juniors and subordinates are not being asked to rate their seniors. Also, some of those coming up for empanelment are critical of the process. “When you have somebody’s record for 20 years or more from 20 to 25 bosses, it is already a 360-degree comprehensive assessment,” one such bureaucrat said. Another view was that, “old retired officials may often be cynical of those in service. Inputs coming from them may be conservative or even prejudiced.”