New Delhi: In a bid to tackle vacancies in the central government and also increase domain expertise in governance, the Centre Saturday released an advertisement seeking applications for lateral entry against 45 posts of joint secretary, director, and deputy secretary in 24 Central ministries — the largest number since the launch of the lateral entry scheme in 2018.
In the advertisement released Saturday, the UPSC advertised 10 such posts at the level of joint secretaries, and 35 at the level of deputy secretary and directors. As reported by ThePrint in June, sources in the Department of Personnel and Training had said lateral entry of a large number of officers was on the cards as a means to deal with acute shortages of IAS officers in the central government.
“There are two reasons for recruiting a large number of officers. One is to of course introduce domain expertise in governance, but it is also to address the problem of acute shortages of IAS officers,” an official in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said. “The government is also considering increasing the intake of IAS officers through the civil service exam for this reason, but that has to be done very gradually because it causes problems in career progression eventually.”
The government had first implemented the lateral entry scheme in 2018 for induction of officers in the middle and senior management levels after the NITI Aayog and the Sectoral Group of Secretaries on Governance had recommended it in their report in 2017.
This is the fifth such recruitment drive by the Centre since. However, it is the largest yet.
Also read: A crime-infested Rajasthan village is called IAS factory today. Next goal: more women officers
No reservation in lateral entry
One of the biggest inhibitions regarding the scheme has been the government’s decision to not apply reservation to posts which are recruited laterally. 2018 DoPT file notings said, “In a single post cadre, reservation does not apply. Since each post to be filled under this scheme is a Single Post, reservation is not applicable.”
Responding to the advertisement released Saturday, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, in a post on X, said, “BJP, which has ripped apart the Constitution, has made a double attack on reservation!
Under a well-planned conspiracy, the BJP is deliberately making such recruitments in jobs so that SC, ST, OBC classes can be kept away from reservation.”
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, too, called the move a “dirty joke” on the Constitution in an X post. If the government would have gone the UPSC civil service exam route for these inductions, of the 45, at least 22-23 of the appointments would have been from SC/ST/OBC groups, he wrote.
In 2021, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), too, had raised questions internally regarding the absence of reservations in lateral entry, as reservations in government jobs are constitutionally and legally mandated.
Earlier this year, DoPT minister reiterated the 2018 stand of the government in Parliament saying reservation does not apply to single post appointments.
According to DoPT’s own rules, government appointments are exempt from reservation only if they are temporary, for a period less than 45 days. However, the DoPT official quoted above told ThePrint that reservation can’t be given for one post, and since under lateral entry, the contract is between an individual and the government, reservation does not apply.
Other problems
The lack of reservation is not the only problem, an IAS officer serving in the government said.
“As a means to make up for the shortage of IAS officers, this is an ineffective plan,” he said. “There is a shortage of over 1,000 IAS officers in the government. How can lateral entry fix it? Unless you want to overhaul the whole system and just have lateral entrants govern?”
According to 2023 government data, only 442 IAS officers are working with the Centre, against the required strength of 1,469 officers.
Moreover, it has a demoralising effect on officers in general. “I have seen cases where it is demoralising for an IAS officer serving as a director, who has been in service for over a decade to take commands from someone who does not quite understand the nitty-gritties of governance, but is suddenly his boss,” the officer said. “Why not just hire them as consultants?”
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)