Civil servants, as they will tell you, are also wary of taking decisions, because they can be so easily hauled up by a senior officer or come under the scrutiny of the Central Bureau of Investigation or the Central Vigilance Commission for acts of commission. Acts of omission, however, carry fewer risks of harassment. Perhaps, in the regime of the day, the bureaucrat just might get an extension or a job on some appellate authority after retirement.

Since he took office in 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has often talked about insulating the bureaucracy from politics. He has mooted fixed tenures for key offices like the superintendent of police or the district magistrate, and in this context has written to all state secretariats. But given the state of play in the ruling coalition over the final say in decision-making and a Prime Minister’s Office headed by a decent principal secretary, T.K.A. Kutty Nair, state governments tend to carry on regardless. Regional satraps routinely bypass the PMO in getting their own favourites appointed to lucrative jobs.

Although civil and armed service officers make a case for salaries at par with the private sector employee, they do not realise that the latter risks the pink slip for both the bad decision taken and the good decision not taken. There is, therefore, a good case for introducing selectivity and merit in bureaucratic promotions. Why should only seniority and proximity to political power be the criterion for bureaucratic appointments? Even the British, who left India this legacy, have changed and started inviting private sector employees for key assignments through advertisements in the media.

... contd.