Chasing a will o’ the wisp?

More than 50 years ago, though Nehru had expressed reservations about the continuation of the colonial type of civil service, Sardar Patel opted to retain the steel frame because of the fissiparous tendencies prevailing at that time. Though the requirements of governance have changed, the civil service recruitment pattern and the training programme remains the same. However, the ethos of the civil service of being a-political lies shattered.

Over the last two decades, a system has evolved in which the politician uses the threat of transfer, tempts the bureaucrat with lucrative posting and exploits the desperation of senior officers for post retirement sinecures. Senior officers align themselves informally while in service and formally after retirement with one political party or another. Intellectual capability or performance are at a discount, otherwise why would the UPA government, like others before it, in one of its first acts replace senior civil servants before the completion of their tenures and reward some favourites with post retirement appointments? There is nothing wrong in this per se. Politicians are responsible for governing this country. Many countries have systems in which the higher civil servants come in with the new government. They must depart if the people’s verdict goes against their masters. Radical reform along these lines requires serious consideration.

At the cutting edge level, every government/public sector official treats the ordinary citizen as a nuisance, good only for what can be extracted from him. He knows he can escape accountability. His smugness is born of permanence of employment. Privatisation and outsourcing could provide some relief. Behind each government window at which the aam aadmi appears as supplicant, exists an invisible hierarchy of senior officers. They are either not aware of what is happening at the lower levels or are acquiescing in it. These officers have failed in their supervisory and management role.

Can their performance be improved by altering the appraisal system? The basis for judging the civil servant’s performance is the Annual Confidential Report (ACR). For almost 30 years after Independence, the same two-page form introduced by the British was used for writing the ACR. A page and a half was taken up with factual data, including the state of health of the reported upon official, with only about four inches space left for ‘‘overall performance’’. At the end was space for one word, the most important one, under the heading ‘‘grading’’.

During colonial days, the space was adequate, as the British were masters of the English language. From the old ACRs we have gems like: “He is a fine officer and should go far in life; the farther the better.” Another records: “Mr X is a handsome officer. He is six feet tall, and that’s about all.”

Since we have a penchant for prolixity, the ACR form was enlarged to about 30 pages, with the reported upon officer to first describe his own performance. The initiating officer has to accept (or not accept) the same. Thereafter, there are headings like punctuality, writing and analytical skills, relations with subordinates, treatment of SC/ST, behaviour with the public, etc. and finally general performance and all-important ‘‘grading’’.

The work done in ministries and departments is impossible to quantify in terms of targets and objectives. The self-assessment becomes, therefore, a work of fiction. Though the ACR is supposed to be a confidential document, it is easy to get to know the content. The officer who has secured less than ‘‘outstanding’’ grading starts sulking and tries to get the assessment upgraded. An adverse report starts a life of its own. It is conveyed to the concerned officer, who files a lengthy representation against it. This goes again to the reporting officer, who must explain his action.

Though there are clear instructions that ‘‘outstanding’’ gradation is to be given only in those rare cases where the officer has done some innovative work to improve procedures or cut delays, this is seldom done. Almost every one is an outstanding officer, his integrity beyond doubt, while the administrative machinery is in disrepair and the civil service, alas, a byword for corruption.

The suggestions for reforming the bureaucracy are attempts to clutch at straws. Accepting that no government can do without a bureaucracy, what kind should it be? Permanent, semi-permanent, specialist, generalist, highly intellectual or with just some common sense? To be a bulwark against venal politicians? To serve the people directly or under political direction?

Do we need the colonial All-India Services, rotating between the states and Centre, accountable to neither? Do we need the mother of all examinations to select the best brains who are then reduced to uniform mediocrity? What Nobel Prize winning functions do the District Magistrate or Cabinet Secretary perform? Should it not be left to the states and Central ministries to do their own recruitment, on contract or tenure basis?

It is futile to expect radical suggestions for reform from committees comprising civil servants or outside ‘‘experts’’. A committee is a cul-de-sac into which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. It is the political masters who must decide what kind of instrument they need to fulfil their promises to the people. There are experienced former and current chief ministers and central ministers who have governed through the existing system. Let them form a group and propose a new structure. Time is running out. People are demanding results. Civil servants are not up for election; politicians are.

The writer is a former finance secretary