PM-inspired domain specialists face internal bureaucratic hurdle

IAS officers treat the laterally recruited officers as ‘outsiders’ and ‘inferior’.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's wish to make domain specialists a part of the executive through lateral entry is getting a strong pushback from the IAS lobby. Unless things change drastically, this innovative method, which was described by many as a desirable step to loosen the hold of a British Raj era system over governance in India, is likely to die a premature death.

PM Modi, with the objective to improve governance, has been pushing for recruiting people who are experts in their respective fields and appoint them as Joint Secretary, Director, and Deputy Secretary in Government of India. These posts, until now have been reserved for Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officials.

The first such notification for recruiting specialists by the Department of Personnel and Training (DopT) in this regard was released in June 2019, inviting applications for ten positions of Joint Secretary-rank posts. Out of the 6,077 applicants who had applied, nine were finally selected-Amber Dubey, Rajeev Saksena, Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale, Bhushan Kumar, Saurabh Mishra, Suman Prasad Singh, Arun Goel and Kakoli Ghosh. All of them were given a three year contract with the option of it being renewed for two more years.