1. Indian Administrative Service
The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative civil service of the executive
branch of the Government of the Republic of India.
The officers of the IAS play a major role in managing the bureaucracy of both the Union
Government (Central Government) and the state governments, with its officers holding strategic
posts across the country. It is one of the three All India Services.[1]
Independence of the Civil Service
The Constituent Assembly of India intended that the bureaucracy should be able to speak out
freely, without fear of persecution or financial insecurity as an essential element in unifying the
nation. The IAS officers are recruited by the Union government on the recommendation of the
Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and posted under various State governments. While
the respective State Governments have control over them they can not censure or take
disciplinary action against IAS and other All India Services officers without consulting the
Union Government(Central) and the UPSC. This independence has been sometimes severely
criticized by many quarters of civil society.
The Setting
Entry and Examination
The Civil Services Examination is used for recruitment for many Indian administrative bodies.
Civil Service Exam is conducted by Union Public Service Commission. It has three stages
Preliminary Exam, a Main exam, and an interview - and is known for being extremely
challenging. Recently the preliminary exam pattern has been changed. There used to be 23
optional subjects along with a general studies paper. Now there will be no optional subjects in
the preliminary examination. Instead there will be a second paper which will be common for all
candidates. It will check the administrative aptitude of candidates-hence its name - the Civil
Service Aptitude Test [CSAT].It comprises of Aptitude, General Mathematics,Comprehensive
English, etc. Entry into the IAS is considered to be very difficult; most applicants rank the Indian
Administrative Service as their top choices because of the high prestige, salary, and benefits that
come with such positions. For example, in the 2005 batch, of the 425 selected candidates, 398
indicated IAS as their first preference, 18 chose IRS and just nine chose IPS. But when it came to
second preference, 200 candidates had marked IPS as their choice, while only 195 had marked
IRS as their second choice.
Repeated attempts are allowed up to four times for General Merit candidates, seven times for
OBC candidates. There is no bar on the number of attempts for SC/ST candidates. The upper age
limit to attempt the examination is 35 for SC/ST and 30 years for the General Merit Candidate.
The candidate should not be older than 30 years of age as on 1 August of that year. The
minimum age is 21 years.
2. About 850 candidates are finally selected each year out of the nearly 300,000, but only a rank i.e.
top 50 guarantees an IAS or IFS selection—an acceptance rate of 0.001 percent, which makes it
the most competitive exam in the world.
llocation and Placement
After being selected for the IAS, candidates are allocated to "cadres." There is one cadre in each
Indian state, except for three joint cadres: Assam–Meghalaya, Manipur–Tripura, and Arunachal
Pradesh–Goa–Mizoram–Union Territories (AGMUT).
The "insider-outsider ratio" (ratio of officers who are posted in their home states) is maintained
as 1:2. as 'insiders'. The rest are posted as 'outsiders' according to the 'roster' in states other than
their home states. Till 2008 there was no choice for any state cadre and the candidates, if not
placed in the insider vacancy of their home states, were allotted to different states in alphabetic
order of the roster, beginning with the letters A,H,M,T for that particular year. For example if in
a particular year the roster begins from 'A', which means the first candidate in the roster will go
to the Andhra Pradesh state cadre of IAS, the next one to Bihar, and subsequently to Chattisgarh,
Gujarat and so on in alphabetical order. The next year the roster starts from 'H', for either
Haryana or Himachal Pradesh.( if it has started from Haryana in the previous occasion when it
all started from 'H', then this time it would start from Himachal Pradesh). This highly intricate
system has on one hand ensured that officers from different states are placed all over India, it has
also resulted in wide disparities in the kind of professional exposure for officers, when we
compare officers in small and big & also developed and backward state, since the system ensures
that the officers are permanently placed to one state cadre. The only way the allotted state cadre
can be changed is by marriage to an officer of another state cadre of IAS/IPS/IFS. One can even
go to his home state cadre on deputation for a limited period, after which one has to invariably
return to the cadre allotted to him or her.
The centralizing effect of these measures was considered extremely important by the system's
framers, but has received increasing criticism over the years. In his keynote address at the 50th
anniversary of the Service in Mussoorie, former Cabinet Secretary Nirmal Mukarji argued that
separate central, state and local bureaucracies should eventually replace the IAS as an aid to
efficiency.[2] There are also concerns that without such reform, the IAS will be unable to "move
from a command and control strategy to a more interactive, interdependent system".[3]
Functions of the civil servant
A civil servant is responsible for the law and order and general administration in the area under
his work. Typically the functions of an IAS officer are as follows [4] :
To handle the daily affairs of the government, including framing and implementation of policy in
consultation with the minister-in-charge of the concerned ministry.[4]
o Implementation of policy requires supervision.
o Implementation requires traveling to places where the policies are being implemented.
3. o Implementation also includes expenditure of public funds which again requires personal
supervision as the officers are answerable to the Parliament and State Legislature for
any irregularities that may occur.
In the process of policy formulation and decision making, officers at various levels like joint
secretary, deputy secretary make their contributions and the final shape to the policy is given or
a final decision is taken with the concurrence of the minister concerned or the cabinet
depending upon the gravity the issue.[4]
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is remembered as the "Patron Saint" of India's civil servants for
establishing modern all-India services. In an unprecedented and unrepeated gesture, on the day
after his death more than 1,500 officers of India's civil and police services congregated to mourn
at Patel's residence in Delhi and pledged "complete loyalty and unremitting zeal" in India's
service.[5]
Designations
Most IAS officers start their careers in the state administration at the sub-divisional level as a sub
divisional magistrate. They are entrusted with the law and order situation of the city along with
general administration and development work of the areas under their charge. The post of
District Officer is also known as District Magistrate, District Collector or Deputy Commissioner.
Since it is the most identifiable position in the IAS services, it is also the post which most people
identify with IAS. At the top of the hierarchy of IAS officers at the Centre is the Cabinet
Secretary followed by Secretary/Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Director, Deputy
Secretary and Under Secretary. These posts are filled according to seniority.[6]
The details on the amount of salaries can be found in the recommendations and associated
documents of the Sixth Pay Commission report.[7]
View for Change
Challenges
Transparency International, a global watchdog body, ranked India at a low 73 out of the 102
countries in its Corruption Perception Index, later in the 2008 survey, it ranked 85th in a 128
country list. The World Economic Forum on the other hand, ranked India 44 among 49 countries
surveyed.[8] A 2009 survey of the leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be
not just least efficient out of Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia,
Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia; further it was also found that working with
the India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process.[9] This ranking, done by 1,274
expatriates working in 12 North and South Asian nations, ranked Asian bureaucracies in the
following order: Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan,
Vietnam, China, Philippines, Indonesia and India. Read more in : The Times of India Survey -
Indian bureaucracy ranked worst in Asia
By the 1990s, the economic liberalization of the Indian economy and the end of the license raj,
gradually opened up the economic skies and the end to the regulatory regime which flourished
4. during previous era, loosened its hold over the resources. Though this brought to surface the
practices of kickbacks, both during disinvestment and offering government contracts, and while
setting up of industries by foreign businesses were soon employing same corrupt practices used
by Indian businesses for decades.[10]
Over the years, several reasons have been cited by various scholars regarding the sustained
existence of corrupt practices within the Indian bureaucratic system,[11] also known as babudom
colloquially, leading among them is its nexus with political corruption,[12] lack of accountability
and low regulatory controls. Others have suggested a rigid bureaucracy with a exclusivist process
of decision making in a overly-centralized government as the reason its pervasiveness despite the
passing years. In fact surveys have found it to be most resistant to transformation in its ways of
functioning, even after repeated efforts by successive governments.[13] Some experts believe that
a fall out of the existing corruption and red tapism can be detrimental to the Indian economy in
the long run, as foreign investors in a rapidly global, economies of the world still view entering
into India as a challenge and plagued as it remains both with political and bureaucratic
corruption as well systematic inefficiency which leads to long turn around period as project
delays cause cost escalations in volatile market economies.[14] Also in the recent years, several
corrupt economies of Asia have faced setbacks, after the wave of economic upturn faded, this
makes the urgency of corrective measures more than evident, they make it an imperative.[15][16]
The need for change and reformation
Main article: Civil service reform in developing countries
Main article: Civil Service reform in India
As on March 31, 2010 a total number of 84 IAS officers were facing trial on criminal charges in
Central Bureau of Investigation cases.[17] The extent of corruption is high in the IAS like in a
house raid in 2010 illegal assets of over 3,000,000,000 (US$66,900,000) was amassed by 1979-
batch IAS officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre husband-wife duo in Madhya Pradesh.[18][19] In an
another instance in May 2011 a 1988-batch IAS officer of Chhattisgarh cadre was found with
illegal assets of 2,530,000,000 (US$56,419,000).[20][21]
Some eminent people of India have called for reformation and even elimination of the IAS.
Founder of Infosys Technologies N. R. Narayana Murthy states that today's bureaucrats are
trapped in a colonial mindset and feel they are the masters and there is no need to show fairness
and transparency. Murthy feels that bureaucrats are completely out of touch with the dynamics of
the current world. He considers to abolish the system of generalised administrators under the
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and replace it with specialists under a new Indian
Management Service.[22] Father of White Revolution Dr. Verghese Kurien insists on abolishing
the IAS. He asks for how long could the country depend on them to frame the policy of the
country. He states that IAS officers are greedy people who are always looking at what post to
grab.[23]