words per minute
6
KritiGuptaPayal
00:00
Speed
The Centre has done well to appoint the World Bank’s water and sanitation specialist, Parmeshwaran Iayer, as the new secretary of its drinking water and sanitation department. In the World Bank, everyone calls this program manager and lead water and sanitation specialist as Param, a 1981 batch IAS. It is also expected that this appointment may encourage many other former IAS officers currently specializing in key sectors such as health, infrastructure, finance, banking etc. either in India or abroad, to explore a second innings in the corridors. Ditto for the Delhi for the Delhi government that has given PWD engineer-in-chief Sarvahya Sarivastava the charge of secretary, Public Works Department. However, both the Centre and states must move beyond sporadic and isolated appointments of domain experts into institutionalizing lateral entry in senior positions Countries such as the IS, UK, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands appoint people to indentified senior positions in government from a wide pool that includes qualified personnel from all walks. That’s the ideal way to pick the right person for the job. As India rapidly globalizes, many fields will also become increasingly complex, requiring competence developed outside the government. A person who has all through her career looked after culture and human resources development may not be best equipped to become the finance secretary just because she is an IAS officer. India should mive away from a closed system to an open system. The point really is to free the administrative machinery from the control of ‘services’ Sensibly, the second administrative reforms commission had suggested a shift from a career-based approach to a post-based approach in the top tier of government jobs, but, unfortunately, it was not followed up. Civil servants must compete with domain experts from outside government, apart from other cadres within, for senior positions. The best way to go about this is to assign personnel to a common pool after some years of service in their, for senior positions specific areas. Further promotions should be contingent on their making the cut for specific posts. India is unable to spend its defence modernization budget, says a report in this newspaper. Out of a current year allocation of Re 63,675 crore, 40 percent remained unspent by end-December. This is bad not just for upgrading defence capability but also for Indian research and development and for Indian manufacturing. It is time defence re-imagined its entire strategy for procurement, using a portion of its typically large outlays to stimulate R&D in universities and specialized labs and companies, and to give Indian companies, big and small, a chance to become suppliers of parts and equipment on a scale much larger than what obtains today. The key is to create an Indian equivalent of the Americans’ Darpa.