State administrative services are crucial to federalism

News: The Union Government proposal to amend IAS Cadre Rules has attracted the opposition of various states. But the state’s failed to recognise the challenges associated with the State administrative services.

What is the problem with the State administrative services?

1) State failure to recruit an adequate number of civil servants, 2) Inadequate training, 3) Not fairly managed, 4) Unsatisfied performance, 5) Dysfunctional machinery.

Shortage of officers/required staff in various departments

Manpower shortage is found in almost all the departments. For e.g. in fire department, staff employed is below the prescribed international strength. Same thing is with nurses and doctors. Over 20 states have a doctor to population ratio below the WHO norm of 1:1,000.

On average, the state police force is 24% under their sanctioned strength. The condition is same with the best-governed states of India. Like Karnataka, which has conducted only 3 rounds of recruitment into the Karnataka Administrative Exam for over a decade. In which one round was stayed by High Court due to irregularities, another one was notified in 2015 conducted in 2017 and the recruitment remained incomplete.

A similar shortage has been experienced in almost all the departments like teachers, tehsildars, engineers etc.

What is the reason for the crisis in State administrative services?

In India, government jobs have become the spoils of power, to be distributed along the caste and regional lines, mostly to help politicians win elections. When this political reality meet the government recruitment rules, things got stuck. The deeper reason for state failure to nurture competent and professional civil services is the political economy.

How to improve State administrative services?

The best solution will be adopting the same examination for union and State Public Services. States can also adopt the similar criterion of UPSC examination ranks for their state-specific tests. This will help to reduce the status disparities between the centre and states and can also raise the standards of state officers.

Source: This post is based on the article “State administrative services are crucial to federalism” published in the Livemint on 31st January 2022.