Sakshi Education
By Srirangam Sriram, Sriram's IAS, New Delhi.
In the past two decades, the Constitution Review Commission (2002), the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008), and the NITI Aayog’s 3 Year Action Agenda (2017) have all suggested domain specialization instead of generalized competence, looking at the rising complexity of modern-day policymaking.
Recent reforms like Mission Karma Yogi for continuous attitudinal renewal may be of use in this direction. Faceless tax administration, tax charter for citizen convenience and railway recruitment reforms for streamlining are praiseworthy. It is equally important that Prakash Singh case judgement of the Supreme Court for police reforms and the TSR Subramanyam case reforms for the IAS need to be implemented for giving the civil servants adequate security of tenure and autonomy from political interference.
Since Independence, while the bureaucracy has earned itself well deserved but qualified praise, it has disillusioned many. Many today assert that the civil services are no longer a ‘steel frame’ and need to renew itself to deal with the current challenges.
Many changes have taken place in the ecosystem
Many changes have taken place in the ecosystem
- Technology has become very important for delivery of services and the training has to be accordingly reoriented.
- Globalisation and ease of doing business require a more agile and less cumbersome bureaucracy
- People have become more demanding as there is rampant poverty and marginalisation. Local self-government has to have influence enough to make the civil services more people-centric.
- Under the current system, lack of domain knowledge is a hindrance to effective policy formulation. This has led to a situation where the administrative leadership is too generalist to be of use in policy making. It has been answered with limited lateral entry.
In the past two decades, the Constitution Review Commission (2002), the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008), and the NITI Aayog’s 3 Year Action Agenda (2017) have all suggested domain specialization instead of generalized competence, looking at the rising complexity of modern-day policymaking.
Recent reforms like Mission Karma Yogi for continuous attitudinal renewal may be of use in this direction. Faceless tax administration, tax charter for citizen convenience and railway recruitment reforms for streamlining are praiseworthy. It is equally important that Prakash Singh case judgement of the Supreme Court for police reforms and the TSR Subramanyam case reforms for the IAS need to be implemented for giving the civil servants adequate security of tenure and autonomy from political interference.
Published date : 18 Nov 2020 01:14PM
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