A test case

Lateral entries into the civil service should be welcomed

Globalisation has made the business of governance an increasingly complex activity, demanding specialist skills and knowledge like never before. The government’s lateral entry scheme, enabling applicants in the private sector to apply for 10 joint secretary posts in different departments, is a sensible first step towards accessing a wider talent pool. So far, nine candidates have been selected by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the government’s recruiting arm, for ministries ranging from civil aviation, agriculture, finance and shipping to the “new age” ministries of renewable energy and environment, forests and climate change.

This direct induction of private sector experts into the ranks of the civil service, with specified posts and salary scales and perks can be considered a continuum of sorts of successive governments’ attempts to introduce external expertise in governance. Those exercises, however, have been mostly outside the institutional framework of the civil services — in the former Planning Commission, for example; in its replacement, the NITI Aayog; in the office of the chief economic advisor; and in myriad ministerial advisory posts. This latest move marks a great leap forward in the institutional outlook of the UPSC. A similar attempt by the external affairs ministry some years ago to offer short-term contracts to external candidates was turned down in favour of allowing civil servants from other ministries to apply for vacancies.

Inducting private sector experts into line functions involves a host of institutional challenges, however. Chief among them is the quality of people who are hired. External experts have to meet a specified education qualification norm and those shortlisted undergo UPSC interviews before signing on. It is unclear whether this is an optimal way of inducting external experts. The second challenge is how far the government can leverage their expertise. Doing so requires the creation of an enabling environment for these experts to function, an exercise that will demand a high degree of cooperation from the bureaucracy. This is easier said than done, not least because of the inevitable tensions between generalists and specialists. Besides, career bureaucrats anywhere in the world display an instinctive tribalism that raises the bar for outsiders to function with any degree of efficiency. The manner in which the IAS, for example, has pressured the government to appoint one of their own central bank governor is a case in point. Those who sign up as external experts also discover that such basics as access to files and to ministerial meetings can become matters of high politics. Much, therefore, depends on how far the political executive is willing to facilitate the functioning of these external experts.

Having broken through the glass ceiling of the civil services, it would also make sense for the government to widen the ambit of its search for regulatory heads. At present, with the exception of the Reserve Bank of India for a brief period, the selection of sectoral regulators or tribunal heads appears to be earmarked for retired bureaucrats and public sector company chiefs. There is no logic for the government to circumscribe itself in this manner. There is a wealth of talent in the Indian private sector and the diaspora that the government could access to improve the quality of policy decision-making. In the larger context, therefore, lateral entries into the civil service would be a good test case.