Government of India has announced that only those officers who have at least one year of service left will be eligible to be selected to the post of chairman of CBDT and CBEC. A very sensible decision indeed. In the absence of such a rule, the post of chairman had become almost of joke. In the last two years there had been four chairmen for CBDT and during this current calendar year there would have been four more. With each of them being there only for few months, these posts ceased to have any meaning except to those who adorned that chair for few months. For them, it gave a feeling of pride and satisfaction at the end of a long career. A parting gift; but not an opportunity to make any difference. Often they just had time to attend the farewell functions as the chairman.
In my view, this is just a beginning. As the head of an agency responsible for revenue collection, it is practically impossible for any person to develop and implement any sensible policy decisions even in one year. Therefore, a chairman should be given a term of five years (or at least three years) like the head of regulatory bodies like SEBI.
The incumbent should be selected based on his past performance, merit and potential and not on the basis of rank in the civil list which is only a measure of how well he did in the civil service examination about 30 years ago.
The government may also consider bringing some fresh talents in these posts; like the head of internal revenue service is selected even from outside the service (even outside government) in countries like United States. The idea is not to deny the opportunity for the service people. But ensure that there is a process in place for the selection of a deserving candidate.
A related issue is the career progression of civil servants. Today in most of the services the promotions at every level are based primarily on the rank in civil list in each cadre. In fact, one of my friends explained to me that they have developed a computer based utility which also has a database of rank in the civil list and age of their cadre officers. This utility can chart the career progression till retirement with reasonable confidence barring for the unfortunate death of or disciplinary action against any serving officers.
With such strong disincentive for performance, it is surprising that there are still many officers who really work hard and try to make a difference and not to push private agenda. But this is today a rare breed that you site not so often.
Therefore, the HR policies for the civil servants should also seriously consider merit based career growth. At the entrance level the institutionalized process of selection is truly merit based (Although the level of the people taking the exams has significantly dropped in the recent past). The annual CR is almost a farce. Except in cases where the boss has an axe to grind, the annual rating is mostly excellent for everybody.
This total lack of compulsion for results or upgrade of domain knowledge, transforms these bright kids who once qualified in one of most competitive selection process to change their focus to deal making, developing patronage and pushing private agendas. They realize that it is more important to cultivate godfathers from the service and political masters. In an environment that is changing so fast, they soon get outdated. And these outdated minds often based on superficial understanding of issues make key decisions and force it down using the power associated with the government. (This is not to be taken as a sweeping statement. There are many exceptions to this rule; but as per the admission of many insiders, this has become an exception than a rule)
I appreciate the perils of promotions and postings on the basis of performance which may be misused to shelf good officers or boost corrupt or pliant officers. I am sure just like the rigorous process of selection; the government can constitute an evaluation mechanism administered by an impartial team which measures the performance and potential of the officers. May be not for every promotion; at least for two or three jumps (or drops) in a career span of 30 years can be based on merits. Going forward, this evaluation should also throw up mechanism for ejecting the poor performers out of the system
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