M.G. Devasahayam 
Probationer Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar has played havoc with the ‘sacred grove’ of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and its ‘sanctum sanctorum’, Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Perhaps for the first time in its history, the Commission has issued a press release like this:
Even in this rot, UPSC is indulging in self-praise! But for stinking corruption and gross incompetence in UPSC, how could this ‘super-fraud’ called Puja take 12 attempts at the civil service examination, take privileges under OBC (Other Backward Class) and disability quotas and while being ranked at lowly 821 get into the IAS get allotted to her own state cadre and posted at her very home?
And the historical scandal has taken its first toll. UPSC chairperson Manoj Soni has resigned due to “personal reasons,” almost five years before his tenure ends in 2029. Soni, who joined the Commission as a member in 2017, was sworn in as the chairperson on May 16, 2023. Soni is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had picked him as the Vice-Chancellor of Vadodara’s (Gujarat) famous MS University in 2005 when he was 40 years old, making him the youngest V-C in the country. This says a lot.
Mission Karmayogi
This horrendous scam brings to mind ‘Mission Karmayogi’ launched with all fanfare to build future-ready civil servants with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, aligned to the vision of a “New India”. Within days of announcing the National Recruitment Agency (NRA), which will conduct a computer-based common eligibility test for central government jobs, on September 2, 2020, the Union Cabinet approved Mission Karmayogi – “the biggest human resource development programme in the government” – for bringing post-recruitment reforms in civil services. The scheme aims to standardise training and create shared faculty and resources that would offer officers and government employees an opportunity to improve their performance. ‘Young’ Puja would have been part of this Mission soon!
Also read: How Bureaucracy Has Left the Indian Civil Services Adrift
On this ‘Miracle Mission,’ Union minister of state for personnel, Jitendra Singh, had this to say: “Mission Karmayogi is an endeavour to reincarnate a government servant into an ideal karmayogi (a man driven by his work) to serve the nation by enabling him to be creative, to be constructive, to be pro-active and technically empowered. The endeavour is also to end the culture of working in (departmental) silos; to overcome the multiplicity of training curriculum by the introduction of a common platform for the realisation of the nation’s vision and of our shared aspiration and future goals.”
To become a Karmayogi, one has to get trained from a younger age and not after decades of service that has bred greed and a lethargic attitude. Let us look at the salient features of the Mission.
- Laying the foundation for capacity building of civil servants, so they remain entrenched in Indian culture while they learn the best practices across the world.
- Through the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), the mission seeks to transform Human Resource Management from ‘rules-based’ to ‘roles-based.’
- Through post-recruitment reforms in the government preparing Indian civil servants for the future by making them more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. This will help end subjective evaluation, and ensure scientifically-devised, objective and real-time assessment of employees.
- Endeavouring to end the culture of working in silos and to overcome the multiplicity of training curricula which we have because of the institutions spread all over the country,
- Introduction of a common platform for the uniform realisation of the nation’s vision and of our shared aspirations and our shared future goals.
NPCSCB will be governed by the Prime Minister’s Human Resource Council, which will also include state chief ministers, Union Cabinet ministers and experts. This council will approve and review civil service capacity-building programmes. Besides this, there will be a Cabinet Secretary Coordination Unit comprising select secretaries and cadre controlling authorities. Also, there will be a Capacity Building Commission, which will include experts in related fields and global professionals. This commission will prepare and monitor annual capacity-building plans and audit human resources available in the government. At the end of the day, Mission Karmayogi will produce the ideal civil servant-karmayogi with all qualities of head and heart to serve the ‘New India’ vision under the direct command and control of the Prime Minister himself!
In theory and on paper this Mission could cater to the long-felt need for civil servants to gather the stellar attributes envisaged. But the reality is that over the last few years, senior civil servants of the All India Services have been subjugated by the prime minister and his highly centralised establishment by adopting various devious and divisive means. Like many institutions and instruments of democratic governance, IAS has also been under severe assault.
First came the steep reduction of the role of IAS at the decision-making level of Joint Secretaries in the Government of India (GoI) and replacing them with personnel from other services that have no all-India character or exposure. Then came the proposal to trash the merit list for civil services recommended by the constitutionally mandated UPSC and instead allotting service as well as cadre based on the trainee’s performance at the Academy during the short Foundation Course. Soon thereafter through ‘lateral-entry’ private sector personnel were inducted as Joint Secretaries to GoI.
Within days of NDA-3 taking over Department of Personnel & Training started preparing a proposal for inducting 400 ‘domain experts’ to fill the Deputy Secretary/Director post in the Central Government. This constitutes 60 per cent of the 650 posts at this level under the Central Staffing Scheme which are currently available mostly to IAS officers. This is nothing but choking and strangulation of the service from within!
While so, poodles among these mandarins are hand-picked and rewarded with key and coveted appointments in government and sinecures outside including constitutional positions. The only consideration is bigoted loyalty and almost slavish adherence to the credence of ‘yes, prime minister.’ In the event merit through innovation and creativity is thrown over the roof and mediocrity has become the mantra of governance. Instead of mentoring, reforming and rejuvenating the IAS, which is the bulwark of India’s democratic governance, the Service and its members are being dishevelled and dismembered through the devious means of large-scale lateral entry of corporate candidates.
Now the worst has come with l’affaire Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar, whatever her real name is! Wonder how many more skeletons are going to tumble out of the cupboard! Are these the ‘Karmayogis’ who are going to build the ‘New India’?! This is a pertinent question which assumes significance from the way civil servants are being recruited and trained. There are a great number of windows and special staircases for entering the Civil Services beyond merit making it vulnerable to misuse and manipulation as happened in the Puja case.
And there are also reports of an RSS-backed IAS institute that has been quietly grooming ‘nationalist’ civil servants since 1986. The report further says: “At a time when minority institutes like Jamia and Zakat Foundation are in the middle of a row over the rising number of Muslims cracking the Civil Services Examination, an RSS-backed coaching institute, Samkalp Foundation, has claimed a 61 per cent success rate in this year’s exam. Of the 759 candidates picked by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to enter the civil services this year (2020), as many as 466 had undertaken Samkalp’s Interview Guidance Program (IGP), the foundation claims.” A question arises whether the Pujas of this world are part of this unholy charade.
Then comes the feedback received from former civil servants who have recently visited the LBSNAA on the way ‘Karmayogis’ are being trained as ‘non-dissenting compliant managers’ to pursue Prime Minister’s agenda than as compassionate civil servants administering India’s parched millions. Some of them see the shades of RSS Shaka in the famed Academy!
As admitted by the Commission itself, episode Puja is an alarming case of fraud, arrogance and misuse of many procedures. Obviously, there has been a dilution of competence, vigil, or integrity in more than one place. There could be more such cases, and it may be warranted to carry out due diligence for other cases of special categories over the last few years. Those persons who are found to have misused their powers of certification are equally liable to face stern action.
A very strong demand must be made from civil servants, past and present, as well as the citizenry, to take stern and strong measures to maintain merit, and merit alone, in the appointment to the premier civil and public services. Appointments of the UPSC chairperson and members from the Services and academic streams should be made on the basis of known integrity, competence, and a reputation for being uncompromisingly upright. Past members of the UPSC lending themselves to commercial coaching institutions, of any hue whatsoever, should be totally banned.
Once the Civil Service gets muddied and corrupted, there is little hope for the Union, States and the citizens. Let the Puja Khedkar case be a shake-up call for the Civil Service, the Government of India and the UPSC. New India cannot afford such ‘Karmayogis’!
M.G. Devasahayam is a former Army and IAS officer and coordinator of the Citizen’s Commission on Elections.