Cadre-Based Civil Service
- A cadre is a small, well-trained group of people who serve as the foundational members of a military, political, or commercial organization.
- After being chosen, candidates in All India Services are assigned cadres according to their qualifications, preferences, and position availability.
- Issues
- Permanent Cadres: This leads to unproductive and inefficient civil service operations. It lessens the character of all of India and restricts the officers’ interest in regional problems.
- Provincialization: There is a perception that IAS officers are “all India” in name only, according to “Public Institutions in India
- Adoption of Best Practices: The ability of the civil services to absorb and spread best practices from other cadres is diminished by the provincialization of the civil service.
- Collusion with Local Politicians: The cops conspire with other officers in the community to obtain coveted and high-ranking posts.
- Significant Variation: The size of IAS cadres varies significantly as compared to the total population of each state. Eg. the IAS cadre in Sikkim is 15% higher than it should be and 40% smaller than it should be in Uttar Pradesh based only on population.
Lateral Entry in Civil Service
- Induction of qualified applicants into bureaucracy by eschewing the conventional route at a higher level of its hierarchical structure is known as “lateral entry into civil services.”
- The following are the eligibility requirements: “Individuals working at comparable levels in Private Sector Companies, Consultancy Organisations, and International/Multinational Organisations with a minimum of 15 years experience”
- Need for Lateral Entry
- Shortage of Officers
- Specialists and domain experts
- Burden to Exchequer
- Incentives for innovations and out-of-the-box thinking
- To induce Competition
- Issues With Lateral Entry
- Lack of field exposure
- Open door to privatization
- Transparency in recruitment
- Discontented Civil Servants
- Lateral entry only at top-level policy-making positions may have little impact on field-level implementation.