Recently,
Government of India has directed the DoPT (Department of Personnel and
Training) to prepare a proposal over lateral entry in energy and infrastructure
related departments of government at mid to senior level decision making. This
step of government will not only has bearings upon the civil service personnel,
but to a larger scale on the economy and industries also. This is because,
still the critical public goods and infrastructure are provided by government
only. And lateral entry will directly impact this decision making
Lateral
entry is the entry of domain experts from private and social sector into
specific government role, will improve the collective knowledge and understanding
of decision making group. This will reduce the time taken in decision making by
government authorities, bring advance practices into government machinery and
more synergy between public and private space. For India Inc, this speed in
decision making will save time, money and interests on borrowed money. Energy
and Infrastructure sector which has been marred by coal scam and poor decision
making (regarding risk allocation in PPP infra projects) respectively, will
definitely be benefited by this arrangement.
Also, with
entry of private counterparts, civil servants can’t afford to be lethargic and
will be performance oriented (given senior level posts are open to both public
and private individuals). This will improve the situations in other fields like
contract enforcement, getting electricity connection and registering land
titles etc. All these will have direct bearing on India Inc, and in positive
way. But, this reform has many lacunae and issues that need to be sorted out
first.
One of the
major issues with lateral entry is whether it will be contractual or instill
individuals permanently. If contractual, what are the limitations on further
employment of individuals after end of contractual period? Are they allowed to
be hired by private enterprises as lobbyists, or affect decision making of
government (since he/she would be an insider) like that of Tony Blair hired by
consulting firm and PE firm as adviser? And given India’s lack luster
Judiciary, it will be very tough to enforce discipline amongst contractual
entrants.
If
permanent, will it not be a deterrent for already serving civil service
personnel? Will it not de-motivate the serving civil servants? Also, given the
varieties of post created with no distinct division of power, how effectively
will be the decision being taken by inducted lateral entrants? For example,
construction of road requires coordination with land department, utilities
department like CPWD and other, in absence of trust how only one infrastructure
department can bring change with lateral entrants?
Including
this, there is also the major concern of nepotism and favoritism by political
bosses. Questions are many, but solutions are also out there in form of case
studies and practices in advanced nations.
Strong
regulatory institutions, upright professionals into regulatory bodies,
responsive judiciary are few need of the time for making this initiative
successful. Together they will enforce discipline and with clear guidelines,
they will enforce transparency in selection of late entrants. In the past, we
have few such initiatives and it has provided us with stalwarts like Manmohan
Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Viay Kelkar and others; and if continued with
right intentions, it will create wonders.
**Political
reforms however is the prerequisite to large scale civil services reforms
