Lateral Entry

An attempt by the government to bring in fresh talent into the bureaucracy.

Advantages:

1. Building specific domain expertise starts quite late for career bureaucrats.
2. To bring in fresh ideas and new approaches to governance.
3. The present system of frequent and arbitrary transfers hinders gaining of the relevant experience by incumbent officers. They spend less than 16 months, on average, in any post; and studies shows only 24% of postings are viewed as “merit-based” by bureaucrats themselves.
4. Former instances :
   • Lateral entry into finance ministry produced illustrious public servants like Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Vijay Kelkar etc.
5. Target-oriented approach, which will improve the performance of the government.
6. Foster more competitive spirit.
7. Break the complacency of the higher civil servants.
8. Doubts are raised whether civil servants can handle diverse portfolios from civil aviation to power to defence.
9. The three-year action agenda released by NITI Aayog, 2017 said “policymaking is a specialized activity” and “lateral entry will have the beneficial side effect of bringing competition to the established career bureaucracy”.
10. Lateral entry at the level of Secretary has met with some success earlier:
    • Besides, Secretaries to the Departments of Atomic Energy, Science & Technology, Scientific and Industrial Research, Health Research, and Agricultural Research have always been scientists of eminence.
    • Similarly, in departments like the Railways, Posts, etc., all senior positions are manned by Indian Railway or Postal Service officers.

Challenges:

• Threatening hegemony of Bureaucrats.
• End of a neutral and impartial civil service.
• Private business houses can plant their people in order to influence government policies.
• Differences in work culture.
• The width and depth of field experience which the civil services provide is not available with outside talent.
• Short term entry of officers through lateral entry might lead to corrupt practices.
• The private sector who ran Air India, Indian Airlines and Vayudoot proved to be failures.

• Undermines reservation policy.
• Lack of transparency, honesty and political interference in the selection process.
• Would be difficult to measure the performance of lateral entrants.

Way forward:

• Government must ensure that only candidates, the likes of whom are not available in the existing system, are appointed. If they turn out to be truly outstanding, there should be provisions to induct them permanently in the government, with approval of the UPSC, and consider them for higher postings.
• Government must also allow deputation of its officers to private sector as well so that they get exposure to market practices and fresh ideas.
• The remedy lies not through lateral induction but through more rigorous performance appraisal and improved personnel management.
• The government can consider lateral entry to head certain mission-mode projects and public-sector entities where private-sector expertise actually matters.
• The process of selection needs to be transparent.
• A credible statutory agency like UPSC should be entrusted with the responsibility of recruitment.