Recently, the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Government of India asked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to publish an advertisement for recruiting 45 posts to Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary level in 24 central ministries through lateral entry process with a view to draw some brilliant minds seeking “talented and motivated Indian nationals" presently working in the corporate sector. The new entrants were supposed to be experts in their respective fields. However, on 20th August, three days after opening applications for lateral entry posts in the bureaucracy, this request was abruptly taken back with a direction to the UPSC to withdraw the same advertisement with immediate effect. The Government directive cites ‘the constitutional mandate towards social justice’ for “rightful representation” of marginalised communities in the government services to cancel lateral entry advertisements. This happened in the wake of objections raised by the Opposition and key NDA allies JD(U) and LJP (Ram Vilas).

Historical Perspective

1949: 

In the post-independence era, the efforts were made to address the shortage of officers, especially those with specialized skills. Special recruitment drives were undertaken in 1948-49 when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister. The same drill was repeated in 1956. This was in addition to the annual recruitment through examinations conducted by the UPSC. The special selections were also made by the UPSC, but on the recommendation of an Emergency Recruitment Board. In 1949, special recruitment took place on the basis of a scrutiny of the applicants’ records and an interview. However, the 1956 recruitment was based on a written examination and an interview. These special recruitments were made for IAS, IPS and other Central Services. It may be noted here that the special recruitment was designed to select the best brains in India and from Indians living abroad to deploy them in the service of the newly independent nation. The then Home Minister of India, G.B. Pant told Lok Sabha on May 30,1956: “The brilliant cadre has been depleted and exhausted and here at the Centre we have no men who can be appointed to the posts of Deputy Secretary etc. from the IAS.” Explaining the rationale for open-market recruitments, the then Minister of State for Home Affairs, B.N.N. Datar said in the Lok Sabha on March 23,1956: “This emergency recruitment will be open, and candidates would be taken from what is known as the open market, not only from the services. The services also can come in provided they possess the qualifications, and the eligibility required... A larger number (of IAS) is necessary, and a large number has to be taken from a large sphere.”

The open market recruitments were made from among individuals who had completed the age of 25 but not the age of 40 years as against the prevalent upper limit of 24 years for the civil services examination. For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, the age limit was 45 years. (The now- cancelled lateral entry initiative had the same age limit for the applicants.)

Quotas in open-market recruitments:

Both for vacancies filled normally through competitive exams and in the special recruitment from the open market was 12.5% for the Scheduled Castes and 5% for the Scheduled Tribes. Against this quota, 12 belonged to SC category and 1 from the ST category out of total 82 IAS officers hired from the open market in 1949. In the 1956 recruitment from the open market, 7 SC candidates and 3ST candidates were selected.1

The concept of lateral entry was first proposed by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), established in 2005 under the chairmanship of Veerappa Moily during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. In the ARC's 10th Report, ‘Refurbishing of Personnel Administration Scaling New Heights', one of the key recommendations was to introduce lateral entry into senior government positions requiring specialized knowledge and skills. The ARC put emphasis on the need for expertise. It mentioned that certain government roles demanded specialized knowledge that was missing in the traditional civil services. In order to bridge this gap, it recommended recruiting professionals from the private sector, academia and public sector undertakings.2

2017: 

In this year both the NITI Aayog's three-year Action Agenda and the Sectoral Group of Secretaries on Governance, in their February report, had proposed bringing in experts at middle and senior management levels in the central government. These lateral entrants were to be appointed to the Central Secretariat on three-year contracts, with a possible extension up to five years. In pursuance of these recommendations, the first vacancies for lateral recruitment were advertised in 2021 and again in May 2023.3

2018: 

In this year an attempt was made to frame a policy in this regard. While doing this, reliance was placed on a 1978 instruction of the DoPT to conclude that lateral entry was a “close approximation of deputation where mandatory reservation for SC/ST/OBC is not necessary.” In this context, it is worth mentioning here that a crucial part of the same 1978 instruction was overlooked which stipulated that while exempting deputation or transfer postings from reservation, the 1978 instruction held as such: the government “should endeavour to see that a fair proportion of such posts are filled by “SCs/STs when the number of posts to be filled by deputation is "fairly substantial". In the end result, the DoPT argued that under the lateral entry scheme, “each post needs special qualification and experience to suit the requirement of each department/ministry where the post is to be filled up” and reservation did not apply to such Single Posts.4

So far, 63 posts have been filled through lateral entry, with 57 currently serving in various ministries and departments. The prominent and high-profile recruits amongst them are Ramanan Ramanathan from Tata Consultancy Services, who led the Atal Innovation Mission, and Amber Dubey, formerly a senior partner at KPMG, who served as a joint secretary in the civil aviation ministry.5

Bone of Contention

The main issue of contention is regarding exclusion of scheduled caste and scheduled tribes from the selection criteria. Aditi Narayani Paswan in her article “Another Glass Ceiling” has well-articulated the issue as such: “The advertisement states that the UPSC is looking for ‘’talented and motivated Indian nationals willing to contribute towards nation building.’’ It can be argued that applicants from all castes are free to apply and will be judged purely on merit. But, as we have seen, wherever posts are filled sans quota, invariably, candidates from Dalit and ST communities are overlooked, the implications being that there is a lack of ‘merit’... Why?”6

The Supreme Court’s recent verdict on sub-classification within the SC and ST community for reservation brought forth the staunch advocates of social justice in support of the judgment because it was meant to ensure that the benefits trickle down to the most marginalised sections of the society. “But is this advertisement not in direct conflict with the notion of social justice? Social justice is not only about equal opportunities; it is also about equalities in opportunities-political, economic and administrative. Reservation guarantees the democratisation of the recruitment process.”7

The lateral entry is supposed to ensure the induction of technical experts, but how does one define technical experts? Do they belong to one segment of society? Further, if the government is unable to locate the domain experts from within the SC and ST community, the government should revisit the reservation policy and remedy that.8

In this context, the former Cabinet Secretary K.M.Chandrasekhar has aptly written in an article, “Indeed, it would be foolish to make the task even more challenging by ignoring constitutional provisions for reservation.”9

The Alternative Remedy

In this technological advanced and fast-changing world, the need of technical experts at the policy planning and execution stage cannot be overemphasized. It is the need of the hour. A developing country like India can't afford to lag behind in this regard. Sudheendra Kulkarni, in a recent article, has succinctly summarized the situation as such: “Another question: Should India remain blind to international experience? All rich countries, and many developing countries, offer public service opportunities to highly competent and interested professionals. In the US and China, it is routine for specialists in universities and private sector companies to be called upon to work in government departments, including in foreign service.”10 Thus, lateral entry from outside sources is a welcome step.

However, it is worth considering at this juncture the difference between an IAS and allied services officer and a corporate executive. The former Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar has aptly described it in an article: “The government perceives lateral entry as a panacea for all administrative ills……. Strangely, the government still cannot understand that public administration is far removed from corporate governance. The management of corporate governance is based on clear and unchanging objectives. Maximising profits and increasing stock values are the objectives that corporate managers pursue. All the various organs of a corporate entity are directed towards achieving these objectives, which remain unchanged. On the other hand, public administration consists of a medley of departments or organisations dealing with areas as diverse as education, health, internal and external security, science and technology, foreign affairs, agriculture, industry and many other sectors. Administration is intended to assist the political executive in implementing policies. The individual administrator does not have a single-pointed objective that does not change with time. Policies may change from time to time with every change of government. The public administrator also needs to learn to work with different kinds of politicians, while the contact of corporations with politicians is more on a random, issue-to-issue basis.11 Therefore, instead of inducting experts from the corporate sector, it is more appropriate to go for skill enhancement of the IAS and allied services officers and then task them with specific responsibilities. R.C. Bhargava, the bureaucrat-cum-corporate bigshot who is presently the chairman, Maruti Suzuki, has suggested a way-out: “We need to reform our system of human resource development and bring it in line with the best global practices. I suggest that a wing be created in the Department of Personnel & Training, and its counterparts in the states. This should be manned by professionals in human resource development whose function would be to select officers on the basis of aptitude from the IAS and other services and train them to frame and implement policies relating to manufacturing and industrial development.” By gradually adopting this process, the need for experts from outside the bureaucratic domain could be tackled to a large extent. Moreover, the capacity and talent of IAS and other services officers could be fully realized to the benefit of the nation. However, in unavoidable situations, the provision of lateral entry from outside the market would apply. Previously, Nandan Nilekani was brought in to devise a networked system for identifying residents of India which was a brainwave of Manmohan Singh. The Aadhaar card was the outcome of this exercise, presently serving multiple purposes. Similar results were obtained by S Ramadorai, who was brought in to create a skill development system. They both were given the rank of Cabinet Minister to enable them to exercise authority and achieve results.13

Here, it may be noted that amongst IAS and other services, there are many with technical background having degrees of IITs, management background with degrees from IIMs and other management institutes, and so on. If such officers are picked for policy planning and execution jobs in the concerned ministries, the output would be definitely higher than the officers inducted through lateral entry with corporate background who are not trained in administrative skills.

However, there is one imperative for all inducted into the government jobs. Borrowing the words of Sudheendra Kulkarni, “Above all, government service demands a paramount virtue from all who wish to enter its portals through regular or lateral channels. At work, they must “annihilate” their own caste and religious identities and embrace only one “jaati”- of public servants-and only one dharma (duty): Service of India and all Indians without any discrimination.”14 Pious words, indeed but most necessary in all circumstances.

Conclusion

The concept of lateral entry in the government services, especially in the bureaucracy is a worldwide phenomenon. Its very purpose is to infuse new and fresh blood into the decision-making process at the higher levels of bureaucratic setup. In the present times, the span of the current knowledge base is continuously increasing at a much faster pace than expected. For any person, it is not easy to adapt himself to the rapidly changing scenario. That is how the need of experts in various fields is felt by the governments in the process of policymaking. In the Indian context, there exists a well-entrenched administrative machinery, popularly known as bureaucracy, which helps the lawmakers in the process of policymaking. Still, the need for subject-matter specialists or the experts is felt from time to time who are well aware about the latest happenings in their respective fields. The Central Government has introduced the concept of lateral entry into the IAS and other services which is not primarily a bad choice. This is most necessary to keep abreast with the developed nations in this fast-changing world. There is no problem if such outside induction of experts in one or two in numbers. But if the demand is posted in bulk, the reservation policy as enshrined in our Constitution must be adhered to at any cost. Development without social justice is meaningless, particularly in the Indian conditions where social and economic inequalities persist even today. 

The present retracting from the step already taken by the central government in this regard is the outcome of this failure not to follow the constitutional norms. Secondly, it would be more beneficial in the long run if the existing bureaucratic machinery is geared up afresh by providing them the opportunities to further arm themselves with the latest in the respective field of their academic choices. Such officers equipped with administrative experience and the expertise in their respective fields will take the countries along on their strong shoulders. Further, these officers must be given a long hand in carrying out their activities and execution of their plans. It should be realized by the lawmakers that by raising the standards of their officers alone would not suffice, they should be accorded working space and the necessary environment to prosper. Now, the ball is once again in the government's court and they have to take a call in the best interests of the people of this great country.

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References:

1. Shyamlal Yadav, Long before today's ‘lateral entry’, Nehru govt recruited from ‘open market', The Indian Express, Aug 21, 2024.
2. Kaushik Deka, India Today Magazine Insight, Aug 22, 2024.
3. Ibid.
4. Jay Mazoomdaar, Govt cites ‘social justice’ to cancel lateral entry ad, 6 yrs ago it structured scheme to avoid reservation, The Indian Express, Aug 22, 2024.
5. Kaushik Deka, India Today Magazine Insight, Aug 22, 2024.
6. Another Glass Ceiling, The Indian Express, Aug 22, 2024.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Needed, lateral thinking, The Indian Express, Aug 22, 2024.
10. Death of a reform, The Indian Express, Aug 24, 2024.
11. Needed, lateral thinking, The Indian Express, Aug 22, 2024.
12. The suitable officer, The Indian Express, Dec 28, 2022.
13. K.M. Chandrasekhar, Needed, lateral thinking, The Indian Express, Aug 22, 2024.
14. Death of a reform, The Indian Express, Aug 24, 2024.