Generalist civil servants cannot perform every task: Cabinet secretary TV Somanathan

Cabinet secretary TV Somanathan has backed the lateral entry of bureaucrats as a necessity, saying the same set of generalist civil servants recruited at a young age cannot perform every task. “There will be tasks where we need to take people on lateral entry,” he said in his address to bureaucrats on 17th Civil Services Day on Monday, underlining this was his personal view and not as India’s top civil servant.

Somanathan called for competence and subject matter expertise among civil servants. “The era, when we thought that a good generalist could do everything, is no longer available. We are partly addressing it through our capacity-building programme and lateral entry, which I believe will be a necessity in the future.”

The comments came months after the government in August urged the Union Public Service Commission to cancel an advertisement for the lateral entry of 46 bureaucrats. The government suggested a review, keeping in mind reservation norms to ensure social equity, as a political row erupted over the issue.

The suggestion came even as the government earlier pushed back against the criticism over lateral entry, saying the scheme began in the earlier United Progressive Alliance government.

Bureaucrats are usually recruited through the All-India Civil Services exams. But lateral entrants, typically experts in a particular field, are inducted directly. No quota is currently applicable to these appointments.

In his address, Somanathan lauded the civil servants for their role in maintaining India as an island of constitutional democracy in a sea of non-constitutional developments. “When you look around us, you would not find a single example like India. You would not find a single country that has not gone through an overthrow of an elected leader, a government, a military coup, or violence. This has never happened in India since 1947.”

He said this would not have happened without the central services. “We have had free and fair elections. Governments have been defeated both at the Centre and in states in elections conducted by civil servants. All kinds of services are involved in elections. We have a smooth transfer of power whenever a government changes. We do not have tanks on the streets when there is a change of government. We also have the imposition of President’s Rule, which passes off with no problems. Suddenly, there is one government, next moment there is another. But on the street, there is no difference. This is because if the civil services.”

Somanathan called this an unqualified success, but said the track record of civil service officers has been much less effective with respect to impartial implementation. “The poor and the weak are often treated shabbily in our government offices. We all preside over this. Corruption is widespread. Law enforcement is erratic. Political interference in beneficiary selection or appointments is not unknown.”

He said there are many success stories of good and impartial implementation, too. Somanathan said they have been able to respond to the emerging demands and needs of different elected governments when they come into office and are able to design policies, programmes that broadly reflect their mandate.

In his address to bureaucrats earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said they must transform into key enablers and facilitators of growth. He underscored the responsibility of civil servants to ensure that India becomes the world’s third-largest economy at the earliest. Modi urged them to prevent any delays in achieving this critical objective.

Modi asked bureaucrats to be tech-savvy and experts in data-driven decision-making. “You are already witnessing how rapidly Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Physics are evolving... You must prepare yourselves ...for this future technology revolution to deliver the best services to citizens and meet their aspirations.”