Time to rethink civil services recruitment process: Parl panel

Noting that above 70 per cent of recruits in civil services are from technical streams, a parliamentary committee on Thursday said the allurement to become a civil servant is perhaps adversely affecting other professions that are a requirement for the nation.

It is high time to rethink the entire recruitment process for the civil services, the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice opined in its latest report.

The panel said a civil servant is an interface between the government and the common people, and works at the grassroots, which requires considerable human touch and a sensitive approach towards the people.

It also noted that a civil servant has to be given training in such a way that he develops a more humane and empathetic approach towards any issue.

In its 131st report on 'Review of Functioning of Recruitment Organisations of Government of India', tabled in Parliament on Thursday, the committee, said that the maximum number of officers recruited have technical and medical background.

'Above 70 per cent of the recruits in the civil service by the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) nowadays are from technical streams. Every year, hundreds of technocrats are thus being lost, who are likely to work in other specific areas which is also a requirement for the nation,' the panel, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sushil Kumar Modi, said.

So, doctors and top technocrats are being lost who can perform as very good doctors and engineers, it said.

'The allurement to become civil servant is perhaps also adversely affecting other fields of working. Hence, the committee opines that it is high time to have a rethink about the whole process of recruitment for the civil service,' the report said.

The committee said that the Union Public Service Commission and the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) conduct various examinations each year and allocate recommended candidates to different posts. For instance, through the civil services examination, UPSC selects about 1,000 candidates every year and these candidates are posted across 19 different services, it said.

'With reference to this the committee notes that the same process and yardstick is being applied to select candidates who would be manning the top administrative posts in various services. It may happen sometime that the aptitude and interest of the candidate selected may not be suitable for that particular post,' the report said.

Citing statistics for the last 10 years, it said that out of 833 candidates selected through the civil services examination-2020, 541 candidates (65 per cent) had an engineering background, 33 (four per cent) medical background, 193 (23 per cent) humanities background and 66 (eight per cent) 'others' background.

Of the 922 candidates selected through the civil services examination-2019, 582 (63 per cent) had an engineering background, 56 (six per cent) medical background, 223 (25 per cent) humanities background and 61 (six per cent) 'others' background.

The committee also sought to know whether the UPSC is contemplating to make any change in the pattern of civil services examination to curtail the length of the examination cycle.

Each recruitment test conducted by the UPSC as of now, takes anywhere between six months to one year to complete, it said.

'This long drawn process involves a lot of expenses for the competing candidates and also contributes to the erosion of human capital. In view of this, the committee desires to know whether UPSC is contemplating to make any change in the pattern of civil services,' the report said.

The panel appreciated that with changing times, the government has brought in several significant changes in the training methodology.

'However, the efficiency, energy and intensity of the officers still needs to improve and the officers need to be further trained for working in adverse situations, particularly to tackle law and order problems effectively,' it said.

The panel also observed that the present day civil servant did not possess the same legal prowess as their predecessors.

'The committee feels that there is a need to impart better training in the legal part as they are also quasi judicial officers so that the officers when they take the final assignment, address the judicial problems more meticulously than what they are doing nowadays,' the report said.

The committee asked the UPSC to explore the feasibility of declaring the answer key of civil services preliminary exams after the preliminary exam stage is over and not after the declaration of final results of the civil services examination

'The committee appreciates the UPSC and the SSC for conducting the diligence exercises before publishing the answer keys. However, the committee is of the view that this will become further more credible if the feedback of the candidates are taken through a dedicated portal and then keys are published. The committee hopes that this process will be followed in future,' the report said.

Candidates should be allowed to raise objections at this stage only and on that basis any discrepancies related to the answer key of the preliminary examination should be resolved, it said.

This should be taken into account before publishing the result of candidates qualifying for the next stage that is civil services mains examination, it said.

It said that rendering services to the common people is the primary task of the civil servants and inclination to serve society with human touch must be an essential quality amongst the civil servants.

The committee, therefore, recommended that while examinations are conducted and the question paper is prepared, these factors also need to be taken into account apart from the subject and intelligence, the report said.

'The committee is of the view that these factors probably could help in moulding the prospective/selected candidate to work for betterment of the society,' it added.