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Shouldnt the bloated IAS cadre be trimmed? news
Venkatachari Jagannathan
21 June 2002
Chennai: Shouldnt the government, which is vociferous about downsizing in productive public sector units (PSUs), look at the bloated Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre and prune it?

When this question was posed at a seminar (Economic and Expenditure Reforms, organised by Prime Point Foundation Trust, Chennai, recently) to Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC) chairman K P Geethakrishnan, himself an IAS officer earlier, he chose to remain silent.

It is pertinent to note that the Union Public Service Commission still continues to recruit IAS officials, at a time when recruitment in PSUs is almost zero. But Geethakrishnan had this to say: "Central and state secretariats should be manned by officers [read IAS] who can take decisions fast."

But what he forgot to say is that the delay in taking decisions is due to the rigid rules and regulations formulated by the generalist IAS cadre in order to keep everything under their wraps.

Comparing the Indian delegation (mainly of IAS officials) to World Trade Organisation negotiations with that of the American contingent, which comprised lawyers, industry experts and accountants, one participant said IAS officers should give way to professionals and experts when it comes to important decisions.

"India is rich in human resources, but they are not productive because of the rigidities in the form of rules and procedures. If the rigidities are removed people will automatically become productive; stripping people of their jobs is not the solution," said a participant. And many tend to forget that one way of managing expenditure is by increasing revenue.

Earlier, addressing the gathering which included many trade union representatives, Geethakrishnan said: "The logic behind ERC is to find out those activities that could be best to the private sector. And the role of the government is to concentrate on more important activities like primary education and healthcare."

"Government expenditure will not go down, it will only increase. But it will be targeted at the expenses that would benefit the masses," he said about the beneficial impact on implementing the recommendations of ERC. "India might have landed in a debt-trap like several other South-eastern economies had it not initiated economic reforms in 1990."

Though the foreign exchange reserve is in a comfortable position now, at the time of reforms initiation there was only Rs 1,500 crore in it, Geethakrishnan said. "The rupee would have depreciated several thousand times vis--vis the dollar."

"A lot more reforms are to be done, say, in the realms of land holdings and agriculture. One should remember that 196 items are still outside the reform measure," he said. Ending on a positive note Geethakrishnan said American and Japanese economies are coming out of recession. "This augurs well for the Indian economy."


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Shouldnt the bloated IAS cadre be trimmed?