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TeaIt is the cornerstone of civil service that it is based on merit. This not only demands that the elected officers be efficient in their work, but it also requires a recruitment process that is fair, transparent and has stood the test of time. Any amendment to it should not compromise its standards of neutrality. Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) last month announced It had allowed lateral entry to 31 candidates in senior and mid-level positions in central ministries. However, this is not the first attempt to bring in ‘experts’ from the private sector into the bureaucracy. In 2019, nine candidates were inducted in the Narendra Modi government.
While this is a significant reform to bring in experts in the civil service, it may disrupt the integrity of the system. India could learn from its northern neighbour, Pakistan, which experimented extensively with the lateral entry of experts into its bureaucracy in 1973 and eventually shut it down in 1979 as it failed to achieve the standards of neutrality.
Pakistan’s civil service experiment
Lateral Entry System (LES) in Pakistan was of society By Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1973 on the recommendation of Khurshid Hasan Mir Committee. The introduction of lateral entrants to Pakistan’s bureaucracy was not new as the military regime of Mohammad Ayub Khan (1958–68) did the same. same But in an ad hoc way. The motto of the overhaul reforms, including lateral entry, was to deal with the centralization of power among a handful of civil servants called the CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan), a descendant of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). In Pakistan, this challenge was a component of the larger problem of power imbalance between a well-established, centralized civil service and weakly elected institutions. Bhutto, who represented the first elected democratic government since 1947, saw this as a quick fix to implement his socialist policies. Bhutto was of the opinion thatbureaucracy‘, due to his arrogance and arrogant attitude, had reduced the quality of national life in Pakistan.
The LES was thought to bring about some structural changes in the civil service to correct the power imbalance within Pakistan’s bureaucracy on the one hand and democratic institutions on the other. Bhutto also thought that the lateral entry of specialists would curb the supremacy of generalists in the civil service. It was supposed to provide a breadth of approach and an understanding of the environment in which policies are formulated and ultimately implemented.
ideals sacrificed for political interests
Despite the envisioned ideals, the implementation of the LES in 1973 could not turn them into reality. Fairness and objective recruitment process, which is the basis of merit, was not ensured in the selection of lateral entrants. In Pakistan, the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) is the custodian of fair recruitment of civil servants, but in the LES, the task of recruiting lateral entrants was given to the Ministry of Establishment Department under the government, with the result under the direct control of the government. Lateral entrants selection process. Because of this, the LES was widely misused for political purposes and this led to the politicization of the civil service. This proved counter-productive and the system did more harm than good. The LES was widely criticized for leaving the system useless as the civil service, which was supposed to serve the citizens, was serving the interests of politicians.
In addition, the LES was open not only to the people in the private sector but also to the government sector employees including civil servants. And because of this, it ceased to be a means of rewarding political loyalty among public servants. For example, an officer who has limited opportunities for promotion in his parent’s cadre may go into the secretariat group as a lateral entry and be promoted to a higher level according to his loyalty. This was called the ‘horizontal movement’, whereby civil servants moved from group to group to advance their career prospects.
The hasty implementation of LES left the recruitment process undefined, which also led to selection of unsuitable and incompetent candidates. In many cases, there was only a loose connection, albeit somewhat slippery, between the entrant’s old job background and the new job. Scholar Charles H. Kennedy in his book, Bureaucracy in Pakistan Gives an example where an officer, who was eventually appointed to the rank of Joint Secretary of the Department of Religious Affairs, was a mathematician by profession and had to demonstrate his expertise in the field. Even suitable posts were not identified for the candidates selected laterally.
The generalist civil servants in Pakistan were dissatisfied with this system. What prevailed was a hostile environment which adversely affected the entire bureaucracy. The bureaucrats saw the lateral entrants as a hindrance to their promotion, who were sent to spy on the civil service. This resulted in chaos and the morale of the service fell and was finally abandoned under the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
Read also: Subramanian Swamy was right. Modi’s lateral entry will make quota irrelevant
Lateral entry, once initiated, lasts forever
The LES initiated by Bhutto provided a tool in the hands of the political establishment. Due to the inherent advantages of the government controlling recruitment, appointments, dismissals, retirements, promotions and grievances of lateral entrants, this practice could never be traced back in the political history of Pakistan. The head of the military regime, Xia, although abandoned the LES, used it to institutionalize military officers to be included in the civilian bureaucracy. Under his rule, 10 percent of vacancies in the federal bureaucracy were reserved for retired and serving military officers, who were selected by a high-powered selection committee headed by Zia himself, and not the FPSC. Similarly, Benazir Bhutto opened an employment office in the PM’s own office by the name of ‘Placement Bureau’ to appoint his loyalists to various posts in the bureaucracy.
Over the years, the lateral entry system reappeared in various forms to politicize the administrative structure, to compromise independence, and to destroy the neutrality and competence of the bureaucracy. Now, all governments welcome the opportunity to intervene in appointments, transfers and postings to build patronage and long-term alliances with bureaucrats.
Lateral entry by private sector experts may benefit India in the long run, but in the absence of a full-proof system, it is a tough move. In India, the paucity of senior level IAS officers in policy making, and the increasing complexity of the policy making process itself demand the formal entry of professionals into the bureaucracy. However, the way it is implemented will make all the difference. In order not to become another Pakistan, India should legitimize and constitutionalize the process of lateral entry by adopting the Parliament route and using Article 321 of our Constitution to create a strong framework. This will be beneficial in the next step, which is to scale up the operation. To have any significant effect, the introduction must be numerically significant. In addition, parliamentary deliberations will open up the system for public scrutiny, which will further promote confidence in the lateral entry process.
The author teaches Political Science at Magadh University, Bodh Gaya. With special reference to the decentralization of power, he holds a doctorate in the Civil Service of Pakistan. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)
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