By Biswaraj Pattnaik, September 23, 2015 : Narendra Modi and his party Bharatiya Janata Party were overwhelmingly voted to power for promising to bring back incalculable black money parked outside and uprooting corruption in the country which had caught the fancy of the masses.

Once Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister, he sought to jolt the Babus into action to revive growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy from a nearly decade-long low. It was rated the worst among the twelve seemingly respectable economies in Asia.

Modi expected them to be at work quite in the morning and not show off at the elitist Golf Club as $230 billion worth of investment money was waiting for land and environment permits and clearances from federal and state governments run by bureaucrats.

Modi had told the bureaucrats to clean up offices, keep hallways unobstructed and documents neatly stacked, according to a letter sent by the Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth. Further, every department should repeal at least 10 rules seen as obsolete or redundant, reduce the number of decision-making levels and shorten formats to one page only.

“Reducing the bureaucracy might be the biggest challenge India is facing today,,”says Jim O’Neill, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who coined the popular acronym BRIC. “Without success in this simple area, other policy goals won’t be able to be met due to wastage, inefficiency and so on.”

India’s bureaucracy has been ranked the worst among 12 Asian countries for almost two decades, according to a survey of about 1,200 investors across the region by Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. Civil servants take too long to make decisions and the government has been reluctant to make any changes, says the report.

Modi hosted 77 of India’s most senior bureaucrats at his official residence a week after taking office, the first such meeting in eight years. He Twitted afterward to say his prime objective was to inspire the bureaucrats to simplify administrative processes and make government people-friendly.

Modi also gave all bureaucrats his personal phone number and mail address to remain in touch to help.

On the Civil Services Day, Narendra Modi stressed the Bureaucracy motto at the institute in Mussoorie- “Sheelam Param Bhushanam” (Character is the highest virtue). Citing a Goldman Sachs report, he said the low quality governance in India can only improve if the bureaucracy became efficient and energetic.

In a democracy, executive political intervention, not ‘interference’ has to be made to keep the bureaucracy in fitness. The dramatic sacking of Sujatha Singh from the foreign secretary’s post, the axing of union home secretary Anil Goswami for allegedly trying to stall the arrest of Saradha scam accused and former minister Matang Sinh led to countrywide debate.

But these moves had sent shock waves in the complacent bureaucratic circles. This decision has been a part of a larger, and much needed, bureaucratic shakeup that Modi has been engendering. Just weeks before Singh was sacked, the government had also terminated the appointment of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Avinash Chander, 15 months before his contract was to end.

Prime ministers so far have never intervened in the nuclear and strategic policy issues. Organisations like the Department of Atomic Energy and the DRDO enjoy incredible autonomy but have repeatedly failed in delivering quality output. Major projects including the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, Nag missile, Long-range Surface-to-Air missile project and the Airborne Early Warning and Control System have either not been completed on time or resulted in huge cost overruns. It took almost a decade and a half to operationalise Agni-I.

Modi had criticised the DRDO for its casual attitude during an address in Kargil in August last when he said, “If a project was conceived in 1992, in 2014 we should be ashamed of saying some more time is required.” And in December last, India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence had censured the DRDO, alleging shoddy research, chronic inefficiency, inordinate delays, corruption and a penchant for reverse engineering. The government seems to have taken the bull by the horns and removed Chander to ensure a semblance of accountability in the organisation.

The appointment of Jaishankar is also to recognise and reward merit. At a time when India’s global imprint is expanding rapidly, a “risk-averse” foreign policy won’t be able to meet the nation’s aspirations. The notion that seniority should determine who should be the nation’s top diplomat is long gone. But bureaucratic resistance has prevented substantive reforms. There’s hardly any incentive for quality performance or penalty for under-performance.

As a result, nearly everyone in diplomatic services rises to the upper echelons without being assessed. Despite the fact that the best and the brightest are no longer attracted to the IFS, there have been few attempts to cultivate outside expertise, with hardly any opportunities for lateral entry or temporary rotation. It was Manmohan Singh who had wanted to introduce lateral entry into the Indian bureaucracy in his first term, but the idea was quietly killed by the self-serving bureaucratic super brains that are highly skilled in misguiding the political masters citing complex rules.

No wonder, adhocism pervades Indian bureaucracy, because of incompetent public officials only to preserve their own institutional privileges. In democracies, effective political control and guidance is absolutely critical if bureaucracy is not to become corrosive on policy-making. On this score, the Modi government is right in shaking up and making Indian bureaucracy more accountable and effective. Hence the final call for inefficient and corrupt babus to make reform and amend themselves.

An ideal civil servant should be: first a gentleman officer with good character, courage of conviction, intellectual and moral capabilities, leadership qualities and the capability of taking right decisions at the right time. For all this, a bureacrat has to be assessed on the in-depth professional knowledge, self confidence, good communication skills, analytical mind, a flexible (never rigid) attitude, and most importantly, the ability to inspire and motivate colleagues and sub-ordinates. Such a bureaucrat possesses a sense of right and wrong to take decisions without prejudice.

The popular belief that no senior federal civil servant can be dismissed easily is only a myth. Several Supreme Court rulings have made it abundantly clear that no erring official of the state has any special protection against dismissal.

Article 311 (2) is only to protect the ethically superb and highly efficient public officials against political interference and arm-twisting by external forces so as to let them discharge duty with strength and conviction. The British system, due to vested interests, abused this law. Unfortunately independent India retained it to be misinterpreted by the bureaucrats and ignorant lawyers, thereby making it appear that servants are invincible.

Naturally, no civil servant of the Union or State cadre should be dismissed or removed by a subordinate authority to one which appointed him or her.

As per natural justice, no employee person shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry in which he has been informed of the charges against him and given a reasonable opportunity of being heard in respect of those charges. The act provides further that (a) when a person is dismissed or removed or reduced in rank on the ground of conduct which has led to his conviction on a criminal charge; or (b) where the authority empowered to dismiss or remove a person or to reduce him in rank is satisfied that for some reason, to be recorded by that authority in writing, it is not reasonably practicable to hold such inquiry; or (c) where the President or the Governor, as the case may be, is satisfied that in the interest of the security of the State, it is not expedient to hold such inquiry. The decision to dismiss an official by the authority empowered to dismiss or remove such person or to reduce him in rank shall be final.

Routinely, opportunity before an employee getting dismissed will be available twice – at the inquiry stage and later at dismissal stage. However, this changed through a Constitutional amendment (42nd Amendment Act, 1976) where in, after inquiry, a punishment including dismissal, removal or reduction of rank will be given on the basis on evidence obtained during the inquiry. Dismissal’ bars the person from further employment. ‘Removal’ allows the person to seek further employment.

Provisions of Indian Evidence Act, 1872, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 or Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 do not apply during departmental inquiry. Compulsory retirement is not punitive action. No protection under this Article will be available in cases of compulsory retirement. Compulsory retirement does not involve any penal consequences and all his past pays will be paid. Article 311(2) is applicable to both permanent and temporary Government servants. For an employee to be a civil servant, there should be a master-slave relationship between the State and the employee. Employees of Statutory Corporations registered under Companies Act, 1956 are not civil servants.

The British when ruling India put the people under the yoke of the Indian Civil Service ICS. Officers were specifically trained to administer India in a manner that protected the interests of the ruling class and not the people. The IAS, moulded on the ICS pattern, instils a similar mindset into the bureaucracy which has proved to be horrifically detrimental to the growth and prosperity of the nation and its citizens. Believably the immediate past UPA decade was perceived to be very bad. The people voted for Modi imagining he is Messiah.

The people voted against the Netas for misrule and threw them out. But often the Babus particularly the IAS officers who actually thought designed and drafted out the disastrous policies that sunk the Indian economy during the previous regime do still reign supreme. The people have no idea of any simple, straight-forward provision through which the Babus can be tossed out.

Incidentally, the British who gave us this system have cleansed the civil service in their own nation several times over. Interestingly, a senior private sector executive from the oil sector today heads the British Government agency that handles large scale state projects. Singapore’s civil servants have to move out to the private sector, off and on, to gather experience. New Zealand has taken the lead and removed the system of civil service hierarchies and fixed ‘pay grades’ that used to spawn complacency and inefficiencies in Government jobs.

The US has always kept itself away from the practices of the British colonies and has never had civil servants. Academics from its Ivy League schools and from the private sector provide the Federal Government its officers. How most wonderfully practical !

A few years ago, the Infosys Chief NR Narayana Murthy rued that the IAS has become ‘sell by date’ meaning outdated and dysfunctional. He recommended disbanding the IAS in its present form. “For over 1,000 years, the government belonged to aliens sitting 2,000 or 4,000 miles away. There is no sense of societal ownership,” he said. “The penalty for corruption is so minimal that there is no fear of repercussions on being held accountable or guilty. Prime Minister Modi who seems to be worried about unworthy babus must take a call on whether the US system has delivered better than the British. He must think out of the box solutions for the nation to evolve. We need to realise that India needs better officers in the administration services than the current lot who have not been able to deliver.

India does urgently need a structural change in governance and the current administrative set up consisting of the terribly archaic IAS, IFS,IPS and the IRS cadres which are just unfit to deliver satisfactorily unless the bureaucrat is mission driven to serve the public.

*The IAS officer is not trained to work individually but perform as a team leader from day one. Without the clerks in the government, who actually initiate a file, an IAS officer is unable to do anything. The private sector teaches executives to perform individually as well as collectively. The IAS officers are taught to be administrative officers and not executives. In the private sector one moves from the executive position to the managerial position while an IAS officer assumes the managerial position from day one and hence lacks the mindset to execute individually.

* The IAS structure is noncompetitive and hence breeds complacency. Everybody reaches the peak of the grade and everyone works in silos. Seniority, not performance, holds the key to promotions; and contacts developed with political leaders give them plum postings . There is no competition amongst the peer group in the administrative work they do.

* The IAS structure has no provision for learning through a competitive environment. In the private sector the learning is continuous and is compulsory because the pressure is on performance. The ‘hire-n-fire’ culture drives private sector administrator no matter how high in the hierarchy.

The IAS officers have continuously avoided the discussion on performance and there has hence been no incentive to learn. However technology up gradation in all sectors has radically changed the way things are happening. Today’s world is based on performance based on learning and execution.

The IAS structure which is far removed from these realities should hence no longer be the sole people who become administrators in the state or central Governments.

Governance needs a whiff of fresh air and it is time to make administration in India should not be the exclusive domain of the civil services. Performance evaluation should be objective, measurable and linked to the rule of law.

Deviations, unless properly justified, will be a factor for dismissal or harshest reprimand. Compulsory periodic stints in the private sector can do big magic by humbling them down. Cross-breeding of good practices of public and private sector will benefit both sectors thereby ensuring progress in the nation.

Simultaneously private sector functionaries should be encouraged to served in the public sector as the exchange of viewpoints and strategies would create synergy to benefit the country immensely.

So, the age-old perception that the senior civil servants can’t be dismissed unless the President is pleased to discard them is all humbug. Pleasure of the head of the state is a mere routine formality. Political will in a democracy is what matters the most.