Academicians and experts from various sectors can now look forward to a lateral entry into the Indian Foreign Services. Based on the suggestion made by the Standing Committee on External Affairs, the Ministry is working on the proposal to allow experts from outside the government cadre to join the service.
On Thursday, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs to discuss recruitment structure and capacity building of IFS cadre, it was mentioned the Ministry has begun work on the proposal that will ease the challenges posed by having few officials.
Chairman of the Committee, Shashi Tharoor, tweeted: “Foreign Secretary informed us that Government was finally implementing one of our recommendations for lateral entry into MEA.”
He followed this with another tweet: “MEA will advertise posts for academics&pvt sector candidates to apply for jobs in Policy Planning & Research. Good2let new thinking into MEA.”
Speaking to The Hindu , he said though lateral entry will for now be allowed only in the policy planning and research divisions, the move will bring in “fresh thinking and different expertise” and could be emulated by other departments of the government.
Dr. Tharoor said the lateral entries can help “fill in the gaps,” as the Ministry is understaffed.
A member of the Committee not wishing to be named said there was agreement to increase the staff, but process of increasing the cadre strength from the current 900 will be a “long drawn process, involving several departments of the government.”
