Economists wanted

It is time the government reintroduced an industrial management pool.

It is ironic that, just when the government has embarked on an elaborate programme to celebrate 50 years of the Indian Economic Service, its bench strength in terms of able economic advisors overseeing policymaking in different economic ministries appears particularly shallow, lacking firepower and depth. Today, the Indian Economic Service, which once produced eminent economic administrators like I G Patel, S R Sen and Sharad Marathe, faces an acute shortage of talent. Over the years, the Service, instead of producing a steady stream of economic advisors, has ended up meeting only the back-office requirements of the advisory wings of various economic ministries. There could be many reasons for the Service’s poor state. Some of its members blame the shortage of opportunities to grow in the job; others point to the opening up of new, attractive jobs for economists in the private sector. Whether cause or effect of the Service’s declining quality, it is true that key economic advisory jobs in different ministries have gradually been taken over by candidates from outside. Indeed, all the chief economic advisors appointed in the finance ministry after the 1980s were lateral entrants!

Whatever be the reason for the Service’s decline, the government today faces an acute shortage of officers capable of a nuanced understanding of the interplay between economic theory and policy implementation, and who can use that understanding to offer short- or medium-term solutions. A measure of that problem will become evident in the paucity of its choices when, in August this year, it has to name a successor to Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu. Even for running key economic ministries, the government seems to be hamstrung by the shortage of experienced administrators. Twenty years ago, the finance ministry had a team of senior officers with an enviable track record in economic administration — and not all of them belonged to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Today, the government faces a major economic crisis, and it is debatable if the team at the helm, largely belonging to the IAS, will inspire similar confidence. 

Sadly, the government has not built up a pool of talent on which it can draw. Sporadic attempts to place some private-sector professionals in key ministries are not the same as a concerted strategy to beef up the administrative apparatus with private-sector experts. In the 1950s, several professionals were encouraged to join the government system, many as part of the Industrial Management Pool — like Mantosh Sondhi, Lovraj Kumar, V Krishnamurthy and D V Kapur. They made a big difference to economic administration. Later governments, however, paid little attention to the need for strengthening the management pool with periodic inductions. Worse, no systematic attempt was made to attract private-sector professionals to the government. Given the current crisis, it is perhaps time to reinvent the industrial management pool. As India’s economy gets ever more complex, the talent administering it cannot be allowed to get thinner and thinner on the ground.