Mid-Career Exams Proposed For Bureaucrats

The standing committee of Parliament for the home affairs ministry has favoured mid-career competitive examinations for civil servants in order to weed out dead wood in regular bureaucracy.

The committee, in its 38th report, said the current system of recruitment and subsequent assured career progression breeds a sense of complacency among civil servants. It felt that mid-career competitive examinations should be open to professionals from diverse fields.

The committee emphasised the need to take adequate steps to ensure that the confidential reports are written within a specified period as it (committee) has come across several cases where delay in writing their annual confidential reports resulted in many officers losing opportunity of promotion or better posting.

The committee also asked the ministry to introduce civil services board in various states. Officers manning the field posts need to have fixed tenures and, if they are to be transferred before completion of their tenures, reasons for the same should be recorded in writing, it said.