Institutions sans Individuals: Recruiting an Autonomous Civil Service in India

• In Event: Recruitment and Performance of Government Officials

Abstract

In India, the civil service is expected to be autonomous from political establishment for many reasons, the chief among which is to prevent the political executive from undermining democratic institutions. The bureaucracy provides a layer of check to the policies implemented and preserve democratic rights of the people as enshrined in the constitution. However, this leads to an important question: that of the process of selection of civil servants themselves.

This paper analyses the laborious selection process that civil servants in India go through to ensure meritocracy in their selection. In doing so, it highlights two channels of political influence, the various stages which maintain integrity in hiring, and the effects of such a process. By using interviews with over 50 officials directly or indirectly associated with the recruitment process in India, this paper highlights the various reasons that explain the benefits and costs of recruiting an independent civil service.

First, it highlights the possibilities and channels of direct political pressure in the recruitment process. It builds on the works of Merilee Grindle, Barbara Geddes, Kathy Thelen and Theda Skocpol to explore themes of political patronage and channels through which patronage enters the recruitment policies and practices of the Indian state. Through substantive evidence, the paper nuances the “political patronage” idea by specifically laying out which checks and balances work to remove the patronage and which ones add to it. It highlights the functioning of various bodies such as Public Service Commissions which ensure that patronage is prevented. However, political executives pass government orders to by-pass some of these bodies, in which case patronage occurs but mostly only at lower levels of the bureaucracy.

Second, it analyses indirect political pressure through existing institutions compelling states to alter their recruitment practices. Particularly important here, is the role of fiscal federalism and the political economy that emerges out of that process which enables the central government to dictate the revenue expenditures at a state level. This, invariably, puts pressure on personnel costs and prevents states from completing the recruitment process. This has two implications. First, it weakens institutions of service delivery within the state and prevents them from functioning to their full capacity. Second, it gives the politicians greater control over the local recruitment process often resorting to violating the democratic rights of individuals.

Further, the traditional perspective on civil service reform is largely shown through a politician’s perspective (Geddes, 1994, Grindle, 2012). While it speaks to that, it also directly informs the civil service reforms effort from within the bureaucracy itself. The laborious logistical process employed in conduct of the selection process is to ensure there is no political interference in the selection of individuals.

It shows that unlike in Africa or Latin America, political patronage is not as rampant. This is largely because of checks and balances in the process of conducting the exams themselves. It goes on to detail 8 stages in recruitment that Indian civil service employs from advertising a position to conducting exams, interviews, and finally releasing a merit list of candidates. This is a time intensive and cost intensive process and a delay at any stage creates a domino effect which leads to positions in government remaining vacant thus not having enough enforcement and service delivery officers.

Finally, a key unintended consequence of this process is the absence of individuals in government — the state simply is unable to recruit in a timely manner to ensure delivery of services. There is rampant understaffing within the bureaucracy. Between the central government and various state governments, the number of vacant positions varies between 25%-35%. Official government data shows there are about 1 million positions vacant in the central government. Similar is the case at the state levels. Uttar Pradesh — a state of 230 million people — has more that 430000 positions unfilled. Across different wings of the central armed police forces, more than 75,000 officers are in shortage. Similarly, over 50,000 primary school teacher positions are lying vacant as well.

This, the paper shows, is not a supply side problem for the vacancies. For the central government civil services examinations in 2021, 2.99 million candidates appeared for 3,559 positions advertised by the government. Similarly, for state-level civil service examinations in 2021, 14.2 million candidates appeared for 84,119 recruitments. This trend persists over time and the demand for government jobs — on both pecuniary and non-pecuniary grounds — is very high. Further, Mangal (2021) has shown that the amenity value of a government job is at least 81% higher than the total compensation.

Author

• Prakhar Misra, Johns Hopkins University