Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (since replaced by NITI Aayog), supports lateral access into government but acknowledges that it produces discontent within the civil services.
In a podcast with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the experienced economist who played a vital role in establishing India’s economic reforms stated that the concept of confining the government to the expertise that exists within the government silo is a mistake.
Ahluwalia, who joined the government in 1979 as the economic advisor in the Ministry of Finance, said he was not different from many other people who are now called lateral entrants. He was an economist at the World Bank before he took up the job in the government. In those days, he said, the permanent positions of economic advisor in the government were recruited by open competition. So people within the government could apply but also anyone outside could apply.
“And therefore there was a way for somebody outside to get in and stay for as long as they liked. That window was shut later on because the Indian Economic Service, legitimately, claimed that look we’re supposed to be a grade A service and the definition of grade a service is that there should be X number of joint secretary positions reserved for the service which is the case with joint secretaries in the IAS.”
“So as a result, all the joint economic advisor positions were…so that method of coming in stopped. Many of my colleagues Bimal Jalan, Vijay Kelkar, Shankar Achara, Arind Virmani, Rakesh Mohan, and Deepak Nayar – all of them came in laterally recruited as economic advisers. After a certain time, that lateral entry stopped completely,” Ahluwalia said while speaking to Gautam Chikermane, Vice President at ORF.
Referring to the recent move on lateral entry, the economist said that efforts have been made to bring in lateral induction, but he added that these are different from the earlier positions “because here you’re bringing in someone for a fixed term”. “There you are opening a window to the potentially stay in the government till you retire. Those guys have a much greater incentive to fit into the system. Somebody coming in for three or four years would have a different perspective. I mean both are useful, but I think in our time, we had an opportunity to get into government with the intention of becoming part of the government.”
“This business of do you have to become one of the team? This is absolutely essential if you’re working within government. (But) that doesn’t mean you can’t bring in someone laterally who’s an expert. But then you know that expert role is better performed by bringing in experts to head committees and make recommendations and then leave.”
“Nothing wrong with bringing laterally for 3-4 years because it gives opportunity to people to see how government works it makes them more informed. And I think we should have that. But one of the big problems with bringing people in from the outside is certain resentment within the Civil Service – we don’t give the Civil Service an opportunity to go outside. If you are an IAS officer – you are sort of allowed to go to the UN or the World Bank or one of these US organisations, but you’re not allowed to leave for four years or five years to go into the private sector. I personally think we should allow that and similarly allow fixed-term entry.”
When asked specifically whether he was proposing a full revolving door where the government employees go to the private sector and private sector expertise comes into government, the economist said: “I think we need to move in that direction.”
He, however, noted that there is a worry about conflict of interest. “People think that it (allowing IAS officers to work in the private sector) will lead to a congealing of vested interests but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. For example, if you go out into the private sector let’s say in a particular firm or particular industry and then you come back – you can always make sure that you’re not posted in any job that you would directly deal with that sector or that industry but you could still perform a very useful role. It requires a bit of hard thinking on what is a conflict of interest and we should do that but the idea that we will limit government only to the expertise that exists in the silo of government is a mistake.”
In August this year, the Centre advertised for the recruitment of 45 professionals for posts of joint secretaries, directors, and deputy secretaries in different central ministries. Usually, such posts are taken up by the officers – IAS, IPS, IFS – recruited by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The notification was cancelled following pushbacks from the opposition parties, which claimed that this was an attempt to remove the reservation.
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Source: BT
