Last week, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) created a flutter by proposing to tweak the current process of allotting service and cadre to civil services probationers. At present, allotments are made after the interview round while factoring in the candidates’ preferences, following which all probationers take a three-month foundation course before they are sent to their respective academies for intensive training. The PMO wanted to know from various government departments if the allotment could be done after the foundation course. It wanted an immediate response as the proposal could be implemented this year itself.
There was no clarity though as to why the Centre wanted to tinker with the allocation process. While ushering in reforms is generally welcome, why would anyone want to rework a process fairly free of bias, though lacking in transparency? Adding that extra layer for assessing the overall performance of the candidate would bring in an element of subjectivity, which is why it has triggered a howl of protest from politicians, candidates and many former civil servants.
For, the views of a handful of foundation course lecturers could make or mar the future of the otherwise bright candidates. That could be a minefield, as keeping the lecturers in good humour would become part of a candidate’s skillset. The foundation course exam also has a Hindi paper, which could tilt the scales against candidates from rural areas in the South, say, Tamil Nadu, where they might not have been exposed to the language thus far.
Under the proposed system, the game would technically be wide open for those who failed to make the cut for elite services after the interview round. In other words, a candidate whose UPSC rank would not allow him to go past, say, the Indian Revenue Service, could hope to apple-polish lecturers at the foundation course to get a high score and leapfrog his way into the Indian Administrative Service. Is that the way forward? Unless there is a really good reason, let the current system be.