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The Rediff Interview/B S Baswan

'So, who needs IAS officers anyway?'

B S Baswan, director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, will be leaving the Mussoorie-based training institute for Indian Administration Service probationers after a successful three-year stint. He is to be promoted as a secretary to the Government of India.

Increasing privatisation, local governance and regulatory bodies are throwing up questions about the future of the IAS, the generalists who have an iron grip on India's administrative set-up. How long will the IAS remain the elite service?

Baswan, an IAS officer of the 1967 batch, spoke to Josy Joseph in the academy's Mussoorie campus about smaller states, corruption in the service and its future. Excerpts:

There is increasing corruption among bureaucrats? What is the academy doing about it?

There are various ways of dealing with corruption. You could broadly divide them into structural and procedural methods. Coming to the procedural ones first, we look upon freedom of information as an important instrument in introducing transparency. E-governance is a good way to speed up transactions and we are pushing for reduction in interface between the customer and the government so that people are not subjected to harassment or delay.

On the structural side, we are preparing probationers for privatisation (of several government services), which is inevitable, and which means a diminishing role for IAS officers.

Apart from this, the chief vigilance commissioner has asked us to conduct programmes on ethics. The demand is so great that we plan to go in for distance learning programmes or prepare modules, CD-ROMS and other distant learning packages on the subject.

In certain states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the IAS is perceived as a powerful tool and officers are virtually 'purchased' by rich people as their in-laws. Aren't you concerned?

We discuss these matters with the probationers -- the influence of the spouse and the value system of the spouse's family.

How does the academy look at the creation of three new states?

They are a new administrative phenomenon. We believe that smaller states can be viable and there will be greater accountability. Himachal Pradesh is a case in point. There will be demand for more.

Isn't the IAS under a tremendous onslaught from specialised services such as the defence forces?

The organisation set-up provides a key position to the secretariat, which is dominated by IAS officers. Everyone accepts the supremacy of the State and the civil authority over the armed forces. And that is the essence of any democracy. What bothers them is what they perceive as backseat driving by civilians. Decision-making does need to be speeded up and the secretariat does need to be more sensitive to the forces' needs. The defence minister has said that he would look very carefully at the recommendations of the committee (headed by Arun Singh) on this issue.

What do you see as the future of the IAS?

A generation from now, the IAS may not exist the way it does today. Its functions, structure might be different. You need to consider two factors here. First, the retreat of the State from micromanaging the economy and the privatisation process. Second is the decentralisation process, where local governments, communities and NGOs have begun working as partners to speed up development at the local level.

Liberalisation means state intervention only in the area of regulation. So, from giving licences and overseeing projects to simply regulating, the IAS's role is changing.

You mean, in another 40-50 years, the IAS won't be existing as the steel frame of India?

The IAS's role is to be kind of a binding force in the country, the so-called steel frame, to be a multi-disciplinary body where people move from one department to another. But the trend is for specialised departments to be headed by trained personnel. For example, the income-tax and information technology departments. As a natural progression, they are reporting directly to Parliament and the ministers. A secretariat would only be an unnecessary speed-breaker.

Secondly, local bodies are shouldering greater responsibility. They are taking up projects -- not necessarily insignificant ones -- overseeing their implementation and are accountable to the people at their level. Thus, the need for generalists is decreasing. So, who needs IAS officers?

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