Upgrading the plumbing of India's administration

The hegemony of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) has never seemed as complete as it does today.

- Pramit Bhattacharya

After a brief experiment with a non-IAS chief, the top post at markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has been reclaimed by the IAS lobby. The top post at the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) had already been reclaimed in 2018. The person who reclaimed that post is now at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Even during Indira Gandhi's era of "committed bureaucrats", there was space for a dissenting outsider such as PN Dhar to become part of the Prime Minister's Secretariat or PMS (as the PMO was known then). "I hope you don't become a bureaucrat," Gandhi told Dhar, when he first joined the PMS in 1970. Today, it is hard to imagine anyone outside the hallowed ranks of the IAS being entrusted with the responsibilities that were once thrust upon the economics professor.

The dominance of a few super-bureaucrats belies a dysfunctional culture of governance in which expertise has been systematically devalued. In several ministries, ad hoc consultants know more about policy issues than IAS officers. Ostensibly hired to meet specific project requirements, or as part of project management units, these consultants sometimes end up performing routine tasks of governance. From drafting replies to parliamentary questions to ghost-writing newspaper articles for the secretary, there's scarcely a task that hasn't been outsourced to consultants.