Bureaucracy: Should The Lateral Entry System Be Empowered Further Before It's Brought Back?

Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh wrote to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) chairperson Priti Sudan to withdraw the advertisement citing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted the move to be aligned with social justice.

The Opposition had raised a hue and cry over the decision to hire 45 posts at the levels of Joint Secretary, Director, and Deputy Secretary in 24 ministries claiming that reservations would be under threat through lateral entry. 

With an ally joining the Opposition chorus, it was expected that the government would withhold the scheme at least for now. And so it came to pass. 

The lateral entry system was first introduced by the NDA government in 2018. It proposed hiring policy experts and experienced private sector personnel at Joint Secretary-level and Director positions in some ministries on a three-year contract. If they did well, they were to be extended for two more years. 

A total of 63 officers have been recruited with 35 from the private sector. The recruitment included eight joint secretaries in 2019 and 30 officers (3 joint secretaries and 27 directors) in 2022. The 2018 positions were only for Joint Secretary-level officers. The ranks of Director and Deputy Secretary were opened later.

In October 2023, a high-level meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Modi to assess lateral entry officers. Secretaries from key departments attended the meeting and deliberated, concluding that the lateral entry system had not delivered the fruits it was meant to.

Unable To Fit In?

While there are several schools of thought among civil service professionals on the issue of lateral entrants, almost all, who were polled by The Secretariat seemed to feel these officers were unable to give the desired results. 

The primary problem faced by lateral entrants is their inability to fit into an already regimented system. The bureaucratic set-up's red tape culture, more often than not manages to tame the drive and energy that private sector experts come in with.

Differences in work culture also create problems for the new entrants to fit in. While the civil service has a process-oriented approach, the private sector has a result-driven yardstick, leaving lateral entrants often feeling frustrated. 

The clash of cultures or lack of empathy for each other's point of view is sometimes worsened by the lateral entrants arriving with the mindset that conventional bureaucrats have a slower and more laid-back work culture. 

Systemic Problem

But the failure is not just at the level of individuals, the systemic issue looms large. The problem has been addressed succinctly by former Civil Aviation Secretary Rohit Nandan in a Facebook post. In response to last week's UPSC advertisement, Nandan noted: "Before embarking on this fresh exercise, it would have been far better, that a dispassionate evaluation should have been carried out about the success or failure, of the earlier induction".

"An honest assessment should be made to see what new ideas were introduced in the government by these lateral entrants. It was expected that they would introduce not only novel ideas in the government but also alter the attitude of the conventional bureaucracy. This, unfortunately, has not been done or at least the public has not been informed and educated about the necessity and desirability of this fresh exercise", he said in the post.

Nandan noted: "It is my considered opinion that if at all, experts have to be laterally inducted, renowned specialists should be taken in at the level of Secretary who can take bold initiatives and steer them to a logical conclusion. It is facile to expect Deputy Secretaries, Directors, or Joint Secretaries to influence the way the government operates".

At The Very Top

It is to be noted that the recruitments both post-2018 and after the now-withdrawn advertisement were not for posts at the Secretary level. Earlier too, successive governments have brought in top experts in lateral moves into ministries such as Finance. One such lateral entrant was Montek Singh Ahluwalia, arguably the most successful Finance Secretary to the government of India.

India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too picked up well-known journalists, ex-Maharajas, and top-notch scholars such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to be ambassadors at various places.

Analysts aver that such lateral entry professionals should be brought in at the very top and given enough powers to change the bureaucratic set-up to make a positive difference. Otherwise, these officers will either try to fit in by apeing existing practices or will fall foul of the "system" and exit.    

It is for the Central government now to see how the lateral entry system can be reformed with social justice getting the attention it deserves as also the need to charge the system with a new sense of purpose and result-driven orientation.