IAS: Indian Asphyxiated Service

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IAS: Indian Asphyxiated Service

By Sutanu Guru & Vikas Kumar

The once formidable steel frame is now a rotten hulk and the biggest

hurdle in India's march towards prosperity and social welfare. It is

time the IAS system was completely dismantled before it inflicts more

damage!

Priyabrata Patnaik is one heck of a colourful IAS officer of the 1976

batch. Posted in Orissa, he is currently being interrogated by the

Bhubaneswar police for his alleged role – if any – in the murder of

Biranchi Das, who became famous as the coach of the child marathon

runner Budhia.

Many years ago, his IPS officer friend accused him of running away

with his teenage daughter. He is the President of Bhubaneswar Club

that attracted unusual media scrutiny recently because the club

applied for mining licenses in Orissa! Used to chain-smoking

expensive cigarettes, Patnaik is rated as a `can do' and efficient

operator.

That's one face of Indian bureaucracy. There is another face to it.

Meet J.N. Jayashree of Karnataka, wife of IAS officer M.N.

Vijaykumar, a man who has been in hiding because of several credible

threats to his life. Says Jayshree, " Our family is going through a

phase of extreme hardships because my husband exposed corruption

amongst senior IAS officers. This is what happens to honest officers " .

Welcome to the Kafkaesque and surreal world of Indian Asphyxiated

Service, the once proud steel frame of India that is now devouring

the nation and its institutions like termites. In this world, the

honest get killed, or harassed endlessly or leave. The pliant

sycophants and the corrupt make merry.

Magsasay Award winners Arvind Kejriwal and Aruna Roy were once civil

servants who quit. A straight talking bureaucrat like Harsh Mander

quit.

An upright officer like Arun Bhatia was hounded out. And another

straight talker Jay Prakash Narain quit and now runs an anti-

corruption campaign from Hyderabad. Says Kejriwal, " During my stint

in bureaucracy I never found the attitude of public service among IAS

officers. The need of the hour is to dismantle the system and create

some new system in its place. " Kejriwal is a Right to Information

activist and spends hours telling you horror stories of how babus

obstruct, deny, obfuscate and sabotage the RTI Act.

The most significant promise made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in

2004 was `administrative reforms'. That is also his single biggest

failure. Far from reforming, IAS officers have dealt such a cruel

blow to other branches of government through the Sixth Pay Commission

that the Indian armed forces, police, para-military and forest

services are on the verge of open revolt against the State.

Many years ago, when N. Vittal was the Vigilance Commissioner,

powerful bureaucrats were shocked when he put up the names of

officers facing vigilance enquiries publicly on the web site. Since

then, the wings of the Vigilance Commissioner have been cruelly

clipped. And of course, the names of corrupt officers have been

buried deep in the web site, away from the eyes of citizens and

activists.

Quite clearly, the Indian bureaucracy seems to have emerged as the

single biggest obstacle to India achieving the twin goals of

prosperity and social welfare.

Not only are bureaucrats arrogant, they are so full of themselves

that they stubbornly remain oblivious to what India needs.

Take the BRT fiasco in Delhi where commuters face harrowing traffic

jams after bureaucrats `improved' the road. Take the National Rural

Employment Guarantee Scheme. Rahul Gandhi himself admits now that

barely 5% of the intended money reaches actual beneficiaries.

And yet, IAS officers have the gall to lecture and hector the

destitute to work hard and not be dependent on the government!

How did the steel frame of India descend and fall into such

disgraceful disrepute? Dozens of Commissions and Committees have been

formed over the years and decades to look into the issue.

Their conclusions lie forlorn in forgotten cabinets and almirahs in

dusty offices, with not a hope in hell of being implemented. That is

quite simply because Indian politicians and bureaucrats (along with

criminals and mafia) have formed such a sinister cartel of vested

interests, patronage, corruption and crony socialism that they will

never allow the system to be reformed-unless they are forced to do it.

Even when IAS officers manned traditional departments like Home,

Education and Health, the damage they inflicted was immense and

incalculable.

Now, like termites and bacteria, they are gate crashing into every

conceivable activity. Says a top secretary level IAS officer who

obviously wishes to remain anonymous, " There is immense political

pressure in the states. So IAS officers don't want to serve there. So

they tried to extend their catchment area. They started grabbing top

positions and plum postings in PSUs.

An IAS officer is appointed as CMD, Managing Director or chairman of

ONGC, NTPC or BSL. It is ridiculous. "

The most tragic failure of the IAS fraternity is their inability or

unwillingness to stand up to corrupt and venal politicians. An IAS

officer serves at the pleasure of the President of India and even the

most vindictive minister will find it extremely difficult to threaten

the job of an IAS officer. The worst that a politician can do is to

transfer an IAS officer who refuses to help the minister mint money.

Imagine a scenario where 80% of the officers were uncompromisingly

honest. How many of them can ministers transfer and to where? Sad,

but that scenario has now become a fantasy for Indians. In fact, far

from standing up to the politicians, bureaucrats routinely pay

obeisance to them in the hope that they too will get their share of

either the loot or the patronage network they nurture.

Says M.K. Chaturvedi, a retired Secretary level IAS officer from

Bihar, " Nowadays, IAS officers are more concerned about their life

post retirement. They want to be either governors or ministers after

retirement. This will increase sycophancy among IAS officers. "

Is there a way out of this nightmarish scenario? There is. In 1991,

Manmohan Singh transformed India by dismantling the license-permit

raj. He can again transform India by dismantling the IAS raj. Can he

walk the talk?

Just a few glaring examples of deep rooted ias corruption

l Akhand Pratap Singh, former chief secretary of UP, was voted as the

most corrupt IAS officer in a secret voting by UP IAS Officers

Association. The movement was spearheaded by 1979 batch IAS officer

Vijay Shankar Pandey. Later, Akhand was arrested by CBI. He is behind

bars at present.

l There were serious charges of land scam worth billions related to

the Noida Development Authority. Motilal Vora, the then governor,

tried to save the corrupt IAS officer and Chief Secretary Mata Prasad

by keeping her files in limbo. Her career spanning 25 years had been

rather controversial. Many VIPs bought tiny shops for juice, paan-

beedi, et al to become eligible for Noida plots.

l Rajeev Goswami, former DM of Patna, was once hailed as an icon of

honesty and even rewarded by UN for his work. But when his name

surfaced in a flood scam in Bihar along with tainted bahubali

politician Sadhu Yadav, it took everybody by surprise. He is

languishing in jail right now.

l A public interest litigation had been filed by Senior Advocate M.P.

Gupta in Patna regarding the issue of corrupt bureaucrats. More than

100 officers of Bihar Administrative Service are facing corruption

charges, and these include high profile IAS officials.

http://www.businessandeconomy.org/15052008/storyd.asp?sid=3231 & pageno=1