Building a World-Class Civil Service for Twenty-First Century India

Abstract

India’s current bureaucracy dates back to the nineteenth century, set up by the British in 1854. It is outdated and moribund. Clearly, India needs a better civil service, one that delivers policies and services to make its people more healthy, more secure, and better equipped to meet the challenges head on. While several countries in the world already have flexible, decentralized, and user-friendly civil services in place, India’s civil service has been stuck with a civil service that is rigid, hierarchical, centralized, and process-driven. This book presents a range of initiatives aimed at helping India build a world-class civil service suitable for the twenty-first century. These initiatives are mainly based on the reform experiences of nations such as Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, but remain appropriate for India. Some of these initiatives are structural, while others are thematic and deal with subjects ranging from performance and accountability to accounting, risk management, results orientation, values, and civil service law. The book is divided into four parts. Part I provides an overview of India’s current civil service. Part II deals with the institutional framework for reforms. Part III examines the organizational framework for the proposed reforms. Part IV describes the legal and ethical framework, and concludes by arguing for a modern, world-class civil service to improve India’s governance.