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By Poonam I Kaushish<\/strong><\/p>\n \n The reservation ration tamasha is back on the political platter as our netagan continue to conjure populist hullabaloo to win brownie points with their vote-banks which snowballed into a major challenge of lateral entry into bureaucracy and fell victim to political tu-tu-mein-mein. A classic case of good policies becoming collateral damage in political battles via the prism of quotas.<\/p>\n Pertinently, UPSC advertised 45 posts for multiple roles across 24 Central ministries through lateral entry either on contract basis or through deputation 18August. These included 10 joint secretary and 35 director\/deputy secretary posts. Obviously it led to Opposition clamour along-with BJP Allies (JD(U)-LJP) arm twisting that there were no quotas for SC, ST and OBC candidates in such recruitment, resulting in the Government U-turn asking UPSC to cancel its advertisement ostensibly to \u201calign with social justice.\u201d (Sic)<\/p>\n For BJP the reservation issue cost it substantially as evident in recent Lok Sabha polls. Of 92 seats it lost from its 2019 303 seats tally, 29 were reserved constituencies. In UP alone it lost 9 of 17 reserved seats which has made the Party realize reservation per se is an electorally ultra-sensitive issue, hence the about-turn.<\/p>\n Interestingly, even as Congress\u2019s Rahul goes blue in the face tom-tomming lateral entry was short circuiting reservation and an \u201canti-national step\u201d meant to snatch SC,SC, OBC reservation in Government jobs, he conveniently forgot his UPA Sarkar had developed the lateral entry concept and established the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) headed by Veerappa Moily 2005 and recruit experts to fill gaps that require specialized knowledge.<\/p>\n In fact, the shining icon of this was \u2018outsider expert\u2019 ex Finance Minister and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As is Infosys ex-Chief Nandan Nilekani who spearheaded Aadhaar. Besides, during Singh\u2019s tenure the Power ministry hired a senior functionary with a leading industrial house background on nomination basis.<\/p>\n This was again reiterated by the Sixth Pay Commission 2013, NITI Aayog 2017 which too endorsed induction of officials at middle and senior management levels on three years contracts extendable to five years which, till then, had only career bureaucrats from IAS and Central Civil Services.<\/p>\n In 2019 of 6,077 joint secretary applications 9 were appointed to 9 Ministries, followed by three rounds in 2021, 2023. Recently, Government told Rajya Sabha 63 lateral entry appointments have been made in last five years. Presently, 57 lateral entrants are posted in Union Ministries.<\/p>\n Asserted a senior official, \u201cAs per DoPT rules Government appointments are exempt from reservation policy only if they are temporary roles and for a period of less than 45 days. However, \u2018lateral entry\u2019 route is a private contract between an individual and Government, thus doesn\u2019t fall under the recruitment policy in Government services.<\/p>\n Undoubtedly, in a fast growing economy there is need for infusion of outsiders with fresh ideas, energy and domain expertise to enrich State capacities into Government architecture due to growing intervention of technology in newer developing fields and hybrid technologies\u00a0 to meet increasingly complex tasks of governance and\u00a0 make delivery mechanism speedier and efficient. As also to inculcate the best private sector culture into Government for desired outcomes.<\/p>\n Alas, the problem is when our petty politics serenaded by pygmy leaders equate \u201cexpertise\u201d and \u201cmerit\u201d in narrowly defined reservation terms against imperatives of social justice and equality. Consequently, it becomes difficult to do anything as it will be perceived as going against interests of ST, SC, OBC\u2019s.<\/p>\n Failing to realize they are aligned and mutually reinforcing. As underscored by Supreme Court recently on SC, ST sub-quotas that merit should be understood in terms of social goods of equality and inclusivity, not conflict between haves and have-nots or merit and distributive justice. In policy terms the over-emphasis on quotas could impact governance.<\/p>\n Worse, bureaucrats too are reluctance to give space to private sector specialists in running the Government. Presently, experts are being doled out jobs which regular Directors and Joint Secretaries don\u2019t want to do. The whole bureaucratic system is designed to thwart any meaningful intervention for the larger public good because power and corruption flows through control freak mindset of babudom.<\/p>\n Further, the ever-expanding reservation cake is indefensible. Increasingly, socially dominant groups always agitate for inclusion in reserved categories. Whereby, quotas have become a replacement for decades of under-performance in providing employment to all. Consequently, this short-sighted quick fix expansion of reservation has only resulted in hardening of narrow group identities. Bringing things to such a pass whereby electoral power politics has led to numerically dominant groups gaining at the expense of others.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, certainly, social justice is desirable and a laudable goal, alongside Government\u2019s fundamental mission to provide equal opportunities and better quality of life. Yet, India\u2019s seven decades of ennui in uplifting them from poverty\u2019s grime bowl shows no amount of legislation on providing reservation to myriad sections, castes, sub-castes and deprived has bettered the lot of the poor, even if a few got jobs.<\/p>\n Additionally, no study has been done to find out whether post quotas any effort is made to build up morale of those given reservation to bring them into mainstream. Accentuating that quotes don\u2019t provide better quality of life or an answer for maintaining India\u2019s social fabric and\u00a0 national unity. Does it make sense if someone with 90% in engineering sells medicines while a Dalit with 40% becomes a doctor, thanks to reservation?<\/p>\n Quota is not the sole panacea for uplifting people.\u00a0 Moreover, it is dangerous to indulge in stoking rivalries on the facetious reason that it is to uplift the down-trodden. Lateral recruitment is not a vehicle for affirmative action and never was. It is a means for experts to participate in governance who otherwise would not consider joining Government. Primarily, they are trained to deal with complex issues, learn how to manage risk, have experience in working with large groups, understand finance and are exposed to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n True, lateral entrants are no magical cure for systemic ills and deficiencies and a case could be made for more fundamental restructuring which can help fill gaps of expertise and specialization for well defined objectives for specific duration. Developed countries like US-UK regularly hire experts from outside Government.<\/p>\n It is imperative our leaders create a level-playing field as quotas are divisive and self-defeating. They need to recognize that inequalities exist and should be rectified. Merely having quotas in jobs will not spell excellence. Towards that end, they need to develop innovative ways of making them qualify thereby enabling them to compete with the general category.<\/p>\n Need of the hour is to provide equal opportunity to all. We need a system that will neither punish victims nor reward winners. Whereby the mere accident of birth determines whether one is a winner or loser. Universalisation of reservation will mean goodbye to excellence and standards \u2014 a \u2018must\u2019 for any modern nation that wishes to forge ahead.<\/p>\n Time Centre-State Governments rethink and rework entire reservation policy and stop blind application of quotas. Else we could fall in the trap of becoming a State of incompetence and mediocrity. This repeated accent on reservation could be counter-productive perhaps creating more fractures than it heals. Surely, the cause of social justice can survive 45 recruits. What gives? \u2014\u2014 INFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lateral Entry Politics By Poonam I Kaushish The reservation ration tamasha is back on the political platter as our netagan continue to conjure populist hullabaloo to win brownie points with their vote-banks which snowballed into a major challenge of lateral entry into bureaucracy and fell victim to political tu-tu-mein-mein. A classic case of good policies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}