Within the next few days, India will celebrate its 73rd Republic Day quoting seventy-three years of having the constitution into effect. Since then India is a federal republic (Union of states) however on actual grounds, We follow a quasi-federal structure. This certainly means that the centre will have a cutting edge in terms of powers as compared to states. British Raj introduced the process of civil services in India to streamline the process of administration. Ever since then the central government is run by a human resource mechanism called All India Services.

There have been several changes in past years regarding the process of hiring & training civil servants. Presently the Department of Personnel and Training takes charge of this process for the central government. Once the DOPT selects the candidates for All India Services via UPSC, It allocates state cadres to the selected candidates. Now a person has to serve in his/her cadre unless a deputation knocks at his/her door. In laymans language deputation is an ad-hoc service that an employee performs at a location different from his permanent job location.

Presently, As per the IAS (Cadre) Rules-1954: the State has to nominate the names of All India Services officers for deputation and a maximum of 40 percent of the total strength from the state can be sent for deputation, However on actual grounds the numbers have gone to 25% and very recently due to scarcity of IAS officers the percentage has dipped to 18-17%. Due to this, the centre is facing a huge shortage of mid-senior level IAS/IPS/IFoS officers.

Now let us understand why does central government requires All India Services officers, Central Government holds control of various ministries that are headed by the elected members however bureaucracy runs the day-to-day administration of these offices. Policy framing, brainstorming, sector-specific decision, and a lot more is driven by All India Services Officers. In order to run & deliver efficiently, Centre requires such sector-specific officers at deputation. Now there is a process to get these officers at deputation First is centre submits its request to DOPT for All India Services Officers. Secondly, States nominate the list of IAS/IPS/IFoS officers that they can afford for deputation. Thirdly the decision lies on the officers to accept the deputation.

Since this process is tightly coupled and adds a dependency on states recently an update was made in the deputation rules which mentions that Centre can get an All India Services officer on deputation without the prior consent of the state. This decision has ultimately added a question mark on centre and state relations.

For a nation to progress towards development, The centre and state must work in a synergy wherein the demands of deputation must be heard by the state government regardless of any political background(s) and having nations interest first policy. Secondly, the number of seats for all Indian services must be increased to cope up with the demand and supply of human resources chain, lastly lateral entry into sector-specific domains at mid-senior level bureaucracy must be entertained by the GOI.

Alexa Smart Said: Isnt it ironical approximately 10 lakh students appear for UPSC every year and We are short of IAS/IPS/IFoS officers?

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

See original here:

Co-operative federalism A tool for nations progress - The Times of India Blog