Steel frame needs to retain its effectiveness

Former Bureaucrat

The Centre’s decision to introduce Mission Karmayogi for all its officials, shorn of hyperbole that accompanied its announcement, merits attention in the context of several reforms undertaken in recent years.

These reforms include lateral entry of fresh talent at the level of joint secretary; amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act in 2018; operationalisation of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013; and systematic weeding out of officials on grounds of inefficiency and doubtful integrity under Section 56(j) of the Fundamental Rules.

Mission Karmayogi basically seeks to augment the skills of civil servants and aims at upgrading the post-recruitment training mechanism of officers and employees of the Central Government at all levels. The architecture envisages a Human Resource Council chaired by the Prime Minister, a digital platform, iGOTKarmayogi, as a launch pad for the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building and a Capacity Building Commission for enabling a comprehensive reform of the capacity-building apparatus at the individual, institutional and process levels. While details are awaited, the architecture looks well thought out. In a country where the training of middle and junior-level employees has always been ignored, a provision of over Rs 500 crore for five years, deserves appreciation.

However, many questions remain. While relevant and continuous training, especially for the cutting-edge civil servants, is important per se, much of the success would depend on the design of such training modules. It should be based on large-scale public feedback on the inadequacies of service providers, sectorally disaggregated and on a structured analysis of such ‘big data’ obtained. Formulating a flagship scheme, largely on impressionistic ideas of senior or retired civil servants and academics, is bound to suffer from serious limitations, especially in a changing scenario.

In other words, has the effectiveness of our civil services in various fields been assessed or measured? Most citizens have an unflattering opinion of our governance system, on the strength of their personal experience at a government hospital, a transport office, a police station or so. Their perception about government policies made at higher levels is often moulded by media reports that are not always reliable or impartial.

However, there have been serious attempts to measure civil service effectiveness. The International Civil Service Effectiveness (InCiSE, 2019) index had covered 38 countries and ranked them on the basis of a dozen indicators. It seeks to serve both as a performance improvement and an accountability tool. Would it not be worthwhile to identify our own performance parameters, in association with the best expertise globally available, to formulate a system to measure our civil service effectiveness? The proposed ‘Annual state of civil service’ report may well start measuring and ranking the performance of various sectors accordingly.

Secondly, in the overall context of civil service reform, training is a component that is integrally linked with the issues of recruitment of civil servants. Though the higher civil services today are more representative of our society due to democratisation of education, are we inducting some of the finest students, now that options are available to the bright ones? Relenting to pressure from powerful lobbies, the upper age limit and number of attempts have been revised from time to time. Does the long-drawn exam, with aspirants spending their productive youth in preparation, encourage merit or sheer tenacity and rote learning? This is largely true for recruitment to Group A,B and C services.

Thirdly, trainings are normally effective in equipping civil servants with domain and functional competencies. But attitudes are equally important, and making public services more citizen-centric continues to remain a challenge. Common citizens, especially the senior ones, face multiple problems that a sensitive bureaucracy can easily solve. For example, with increasing migration within the country, updating residential address has become necessary, for example, in the electoral photo identity or Aadhaar card or even for opening a bank account. Often, this turns out to be a nightmare. Yet, this can be solved by way of a simple affidavit, or by a self-declaration that can be immediately verified or attested by any local authority.

How the indifferent and obstructionist attitude at operating levels can be changed through training is a moot question.

Lastly, the performance of civil servants is linked with their career progression and the level of their motivation. The idea of aligning work allocation by matching their experience with the requirements of job has largely been on paper. Evidently, political considerations impact transfers and postings at various levels. Moreover, what affects systemic morale down the line is the trend of appointing retired officials in statutory and other important posts. This practice of choosing senior officials for post-retirement ‘sinecures’ has not done much good, discouraging competent and impartial officers and de-motivating others. Training may enhance the knowledge and skill-set, but is unlikely to motivate to offer the best service, in a climate where loyalty to the political superior is noticeably rewarded.

In his book Accountability: Angst, Awareness, Action [Pearson, 2012], Jay P Desai has shown that on indices such as the Democracy Index, Corruption Perceptions Index and Bribe Payers Index, India ranks rather low. On Global Competitiveness Index 2010-11, it was 51st out of 139 countries and on Worldwide Governance Indicators, 2009, it ranked 112th out of 213 countries. On the UNDP’s Human Development Index-2019, we are at the 129th position out of 189 countries. This is an indictment of our collective performance, even if one questions the methodology and finds that there have been improvements in certain areas. Without undermining the contribution of individual civil servants, it appears that these rankings are not totally out of sync with the public perception of our governmental machinery.

The success of Mission Karmayogi would depend on addressing the right questions and seeking to design systems accordingly, to prepare and sensitise the civil servants to make a visible difference to public life. Importantly, its success would inspire the state governments, where most of the citizen-government interface lies, to undertake civil service reforms more purposefully.