It is not for the first time that the image of IAS is being questioned. Recently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called upon the bureaucrats to be fair, honest and efficient while discharging their duties. Addressing an Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officers meet in New Delhi last week, the Prime Minister once again reiterated his belief that bureaucrats have a very poor image in public and therefore need to redeem themselves. On an earlier occasion, the PM had even suggested changes in the system of recruitment to IAS and advised new methods to periodically assess the performance after recruitment.

Honesty, integrity and professional rectitude, are the prime requisites for being an IAS officer, but there are many issues related to IAS, both its recruitment method as well as its functioning, which call for a wide-ranging discussion. The IAS was conceived along the lines of imperial Indian Civil Services (ICS) which was primarily geared to achieve revenue collection. Today, in a rapidly changing 21st century scenario where India is a heading for economic and global supremacy while retaining its distinguished character as the world’s largest democracy, many of the IAS officers continue to be considered being feudal, slothful and prone to take advantage of their positions in various ways. Not only there is often a conspicuous conceit in their dealings with common public but also so in their dealings with fellow-colleagues from non-IAS cadres.

Quite contrary to its role model the British ICS which was held in high esteem for its incorruptibility and unblemished honesty, the stories of embezzlements, scams and corrupt practices involving IAS officers hardly need to be retold. Sixty years after independence, the IAS is seen as a mere lucrative career option which offers a secure well-paid job with choicest perks often accompanied with the prospect of a matrimonial alliance carrying a fat dowry. It is time to remind and that is what Manmohan Singh is trying to remind the IAS officers has unfortunately given way to lesser considerations like the unsavory haste to make a fortune using the IAS tag. And upon this, an IAS officer with a non-specialized and often non-technical educational background considers himself qualified enough to sit upon judgment over highly technical professionals including engineers, doctors etc.

Necessary modifications are required to be made in recruitment methods, selection and training of IAS incumbents. It could be argued on behalf of the IAS lot that after all they too belong to the same society in which, for example, many a doctor indulge in malpractices like trade in kidneys or advising unwarranted expensive investigations to the patient and many an engineer thrive through embezzlement of state funds. But, the rejoinder to this argument is that in that case the IAS lobby should avoid posing as a holy cow with claims to impunity not available to other state functionaries. Transparency and accountability are the key words even for IAS personnel. No longer can the common man be held to ransom by the much condemned bureaucrat-politician nexus.