Despite the intervention of the Prime Minister himself, many of the top cultural institutions in the country, including the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum, continue to be run by ad-hoc appointees, as the effort to reform the process for selecting the heads of these institutions remains stuck in bureaucratic delays.

Five of the eight top-most institutions under the Ministry of Culture, including the National Archives, National Library and Anthropological Survey of India, have not had a full-time Director General for years now. This despite the fact that Manmohan Singh, in January this year, gave his approval for a new search-cum-selection method — instead of the usual UPSC route — to expedite the selection of suitable candidates for these positions.

Not even one search-cum-selection process has been initiated in the nine months since the PM’s approval with officials in the Law Ministry and the Department of Personnel and Training resisting some of the changes being brought about through the new system. The main objection has been with regard to the raising of the age limit for the appointment and retirement for these positions.

The PM had approved the proposal to let candidates up to the age of 67 years be appointed to these positions. The retirement age has also been raised to 70 years. The new recruitment system also allows the government to give long-term contracts to suitable candidates and offer them market-based remuneration.

The Ministry of Culture, which had floated these proposals, had argued that these steps were necessary to attract the best talent in the country to head these nationally important institutions, some of which are in crying need for reform and require strong and able leadership. Additionally, it was also argued that the UPSC followed a qualification-based system as against achievement-based process, and therefore did not draw the best applications. The idea to shift to a new system was to broad-base the eligibility criteria and let the search-cum-selection committee pick on the best candidate available for the job even if the person in question had not made a formal application. Market-based remuneration and freedom of operation were some other incentives on offer. It was hoped that the candidates so selected would be able to turn these institutions around into some of the finest centres of excellence in the world.

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