What is the issue?
- The debate on generalists and specialists is kick-started with rising demands for lateral entry into civil services.
- Also, the changing nature of government creates the need for a reassessment of the nature of civil servants involved in administration.
What is the need for specialisation?
- Changing nature - The Indian Administrative Service(IAS) was modelled on the colonial era Indian Civil Service as a generalist service.
- It was conceived primarily to deliver the core functions of the state such as tax collection and maintenance of law and order.
- But with the evolution of public administration and economic reforms changing the State's role, there is a higher demand for domain knowledge at policy level.
- Drawbacks - IAS, as generalists, tend to over-weigh their experience of the process and form over understanding of policy content.
- Generalists heading specialised areas seems to be an inefficient arrangement at times.
- There is also a misconception that only generalists who have a breadth of understanding and experience can provide best leadership.
- All these have raised questions about the role and relevance of the generalised IAS.
What could be done?
- The Constitution Review Commission 2002 suggested the “need to specialise some of the generalists and generalise some of the specialists”.
- However the task of managing specialisation needs the consideration of many factors:
- When - From generalised field postings in the initial decade of service, an IAS gradually moves to policy formulating positions.
- This mid-career level transition provides the ideal marker for beginning to specialise.
- How - Possibly, complying to the demands of behavioural attributes and aptitudes, ministries could be broadly categorised into three groups - welfare, regulatory and economic ministries.
- Secondly, specialisation process needs to be flexible according to the preference of IAS officers.
- Given this flexibility, it is also essential that the government make the process more predictable and transparent to avoid favouritism.
- Thirdly, once allocated to specialist positions, officers should be provided study and training for deepening their domain knowledge.
- In addition to these, the specialised lateral entrants should be required to “generalise” through field postings.
- The nature of policy-making at present demands that specialist expertise has to go with generalist experience.
- Thus, proper cadre management that provides for a right proportion of generalisation and specialisation can improve the efficiency and relevance of civil services.
Source: Indian Express
