The writer’s suggestions (“Fixing the steel frame”, October 10) are worth looking into, but he seems to have ignored how civil servants bend backwards before elected representatives to curry favour with them. There are numerous examples of how they do this in: allotment of housing sites and study leave to go abroad, ignoring public interest. Their transfers are often whimsical even before they can find their feet in their respective portfolios. However there are some who are straightforward and known for their impeccable integrity who are uprooted by their political bosses. In the end, civil servants who have qualified in the prestigious civil service examination and trained at Mussoorie must be sincere and care about their self-esteem.
Nagrathna Dwarakanath,
Bengaluru
The writer seems to be advocating a cluster-based development of manpower in the IAS in order to gain administrative efficiency. But this kind of specialised manpower is already present at the directorate level in the ministries concerned. These directorates are part of the administrative hierarchy of India and staffed with well qualified people, many of them from the IITs.
He has compared our system with that of the U.K.’s but we have to remember that the educational qualifications of an officer’s political masters are often lower than of his counterparts in the U.K. Using the example of the defence forces is inappropriate as defence staff have very little public interface to deal with. Defence officers do not deal with politicians.
Varied experience no doubt increases the capability of officers to deal with various interdisciplinary problems, but in the cluster-based approach, there may be some inefficiency in certain sectors.
Sushobhan Biswas,
Kolkata
Deep-rooted as his comments are in unflinching realism, the writer’s recommendations for reconstructing and revamping the Indian Administrative Service and other branches of the administrative machine ought to be mulled over by our netas. His is also a model example of detached scientific reasoning.
P.R. Krishna Narayanan,
Chennai
