Civil Services of India

During the British raj, Warren Hastings laid the foundation of civil service and Charles Cornwallis reformed, modernised, and rationalised it.

The covenanted civil service consisted of only Europeans (i.e., British personnel) occupying the higher posts in the government.

The uncovenanted civil service was solely introduced to facilitate the entry of Indians at the lower rung of the administration.

The Constitution, under Article 312[13] gives authority to the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) to set up new branches of the All India Services with a two-thirds majority vote.

Among the members of the civil services are administrators in the central government and state government; emissaries in the foreign missions/embassies; tax collectors and revenue commissioners; civil service commissioned police officers; permanent representative(s) and employees in the United Nations and its agencies; and chairmen, managing directors, and full-time functional directors and members of the board of various public-sector undertakings, enterprises, corporations, banks, and financial institutions.

Civil servants are employed to various agencies of India and can also be appointed as advisors, special duty officers, or private secretaries to ministers of the Union and the State Government.

Civil Services Board is responsible for the entry level recruitment and subsequent job promotions below the rank of Joint Secretary to Government of India.

This day gives civil servants the opportunity for introspection and thinking about future strategies to deal with the challenges being posed by the changing times.

[20] This date (21 April) was chosen to commemorate the day in 1947 when Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Home Minister of Independent India, addressed the probationers of Administrative Services Officers.

On this occasion, all officers of Central and State Governments are honoured for excellence in public administration by the Prime Minister of India.

For Group B central civil service posts, the Combined Graduate Level Examination (CGLE) is conducted by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC).

"We estimate that if India were to pursue civil service reforms and reach the Asian average on government effectiveness, it could add 0.9 percentage points annually to per capita GDP... Institutional quality is a crucial driver of economic performance."

[27][28] A 2009 survey of the leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be not only the least efficient among Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia, but also that working with India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process.

[30][31][32] A 2013 EY (Ernst & Young) Study[33] reports the industries most vulnerable to corruption are: Infrastructure & Real Estate, Metals & Mining, Aerospace & Defence, and Power & Utilities.

"The IAS is hamstrung by political interference, outdated personnel procedures, and a mixed record on policy implementation, and it is in need of urgent reform.

A paper prepared in 2012 by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions states that corruption is prevalent at all levels in civil services and it is institutionalised.

[36][37] A 2005 study done by the Transparency International in India found that more than 92% of the people had firsthand experience of paying bribes or peddling influence to get services performed in a public office.

[43][44] ₹1 lakh crore (US$12 billion) losses through corruption, waste and fraud occurred from the government's National Rural Health Mission healthcare programme, several of arrested high-level public servants died under mysterious circumstances including one in prison.

The World Bank study finds that the public distribution programmes and social spending contracts have proven to be a waste due to corruption.

[59] From 2020 to 2021, government will conduct common foundation course for all Group A services to counter the attitude of elite clique operating in silos.

[59] In 2014, to align the country's civil service systems with the strategic national goals, government implemented a new 360 degree appraisal system which entails "Annual Confidential Report" (ACR), review of work-related attitude and behavior based on confidential feedback from peers, subordinates, and outsiders stakeholders who have dealt with the officer.

This new system replaced the earlier archaic annual performance appraisal based solely on the ACR written by an officer's boss.

[59] From 2018, to attract the best domain expert candidates from across the world for the senior civil servants job, vacancies which were earlier available only through promotion of officers were opened for direct hire or lateral entry as well.

[64][66][67] In 2016, the Ministry of Finance dismissed 72 and prematurely retired another 33 Indian Revenue Service officers for the first time for non-performance and on disciplinary grounds.