The UPSC Lateral Entry Scheme Has Reasonable Foundations but There Are Concerns

The plan is in the line of fire as it bypasses the constitutional provision of reservations for SCs, STs, and OBCs.

[Editor's note: the Union Government has now written to UPSC asking it to withdraw the advertisements for lateral entry recruitments.]

Controversies appear to be chasing the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in its third term. Besides the unresolved Manipur crisis, it is facing flake newly built infrastructure crumbling, allegations of corruption after disclosures by the Hindenburg report, and failure on the policy front as well, especially the neighbourhood policy — the most recent one involving the fall of the Sheikh Hasina Government in Bangladesh.

The latest controversy, however, emanates from the advertisement published by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) that seeks applications for the lateral entry of domain experts into central government services for as many as 45 posts, that too of Deputy Secretary and above.

The plan is now in the line of fire because it bypasses the constitutional provision of reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in government jobs. This is because each post is advertised as a stand-alone one and reservations are not applicable for such posts.

The Opposition is terming the plan as a subversion of the Constitution through the backdoor and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has announced protest rallies as well. Even the Lok Janshakti Party, an ally of the NDA, is opposing the move.

The debate about the 'generalists' versus the 'specialists' has been long ongoing.

Lateral entry appointments are nothing new and one of the most famous of these appointments to the Government of India was that of former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh as Chief Economic Advisor. Other prominent lateral entrants to the government include Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Economic Advisor, Vijay L Kelkar and Vimal Jalan as Finance Secretary, Shankar Acharya as Chief Economic Advisor, Rakesh Mohan as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and subsequently as an advisor to Finance Secretary, Arvind Virmani as Chief Economic Advisor, and Ram Vinay Sahi as Power Secretary amongst others.

The induction of officers via a lateral entry scheme has also been recommended by the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Veerappa Moily in 2005, besides the 6th Pay Commission. Both have recommended that an expert and a motivated pool of Indian nationals outside the bureaucracy should be tapped for sound policy formulation and its implementation in specific domains requiring specific expertise.

Regular lateral entries into the Government have been happening since 2018. The opposition to the scheme this time, however, emanates mainly from the fear of the bureaucracy being politicised by the induction of ideologically committed people. There are also concerns about people on the payroll of particular industrialists being inducted, thereby distorting policy in favour of that particular industrialist.

The issue concerning affirmative action gets further highlighted as it has come right after widespread fear that the BJP government is out to do away with reservations after the pronouncements of many leaders that the party needed 400 seats to change the Constitution in the run-up to the recent elections.

But the lateral entry scheme has its advantages and the ultimate goal of this mechanism is to select the best from a wider pool of applications as various schemes started by the government require a new set of skills and expertise. The scheme enables the government to recruit domain experts from the private and public sectors to the central administration which will help improve the efficiency and delivery of civil services.

The recruitment of personnel with specialised knowledge will, besides contributing to policy-making and implementation, bring new ideas and fresh perspectives to governance. It also has the potential to transform the civil services towards a performance-orientated culture. Another advantage is that the professionals already specialising in their respective fields will be able to quickly adapt and contribute with minimum training. Most of the training they will require would be concerning the rules and procedures of the government.

The short tenure of lateral entrants, however, may inhibit them and restrict their focus to short-term goals, thus adversely affecting the continuity of policies. The biggest fear about the scheme is that the selection process may be perceived as politically motivated, especially in the present times when followers of a particular ideology are favoured for important assignments.

There is no doubt that reservations as affirmative action for the upliftment of those who have been deprived and discriminated against for centuries is a sound and time-tested policy. The Government of India Circular No 34 E/O-VIII(EIV) dated 7 September 1968 provides for reservation in contractual appointments of over 45 days. However, these instructions would not apply in this case because these are standalone positions that are exempt from reservations as clarified by Government of India Office Memorandum No 1/9/74-Estt.SCT dated 29-4-1975.

One could argue that the positions could have been clubbed while advertising to provide for reservation. Each of the posts, however, is independent of each other and requires a specific skill set. Combining them would not have worked.

For example, out of the 45 advertised posts, the total vacancies of 10 joint secretaries include joint secretary digital economy, FinTech, Cyber Security and investment in Finance Ministry and joint secretary (policy and plan) in the NDMA under MHA, among others, as reported by the Indian Express.

Secondly, all these are Class 1 promotion posts to which recruitment would have happened only through promotion from the intake level of Under Secretary. Therefore, reservation for promotions within Class 1 posts from the level of Under Secretary and above is, ab initio, not applicable.

To conclude, the lateral induction scheme in its present shape has reasonable foundations and aims to enhance the efficiency of government functioning. The selection process, however, has to be fair and transparent in order to ensure that only the best are selected for appointment. It must be ensured that the candidates selected are not ideologically compromised and they do not represent the vested interests of any particular community, industrialist, or agency.

(Sanjiv Krishan Sood (Retd) has served as the Additional Director General of the BSF and was also with the SPG. He tweets @sood_2. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)