Building a World-Class Civil Service for 21st Century India

Sixty years after independence, India continues to function with an outdated, moribund bureaucracy that was instituted by the British in the nineteenth century. Thus, the problems and deficits in the civil services are long-standing and systemic. In a largely globalized world, India now has to compete with countries not only in the marketplace, but also with regard to efficient governance and delivery of public services. The need of the hour, therefore, is for a dynamic, forward-looking bureaucracy that delivers policies and services, responds to citizens' needs and provides services that will improve their quality of life. Reforming the vast Indian bureaucracy is a challenging task and cannot be undertaken in isolation. Success stories from across the world underscore the crucial relationship between civil service reform and wider reforms in other areas of government. The book discusses legislative, procedural and administrative changes that the Indian government needs to implement to give its civil servants the freedom and capacity necessary to pursue more innovative ways of seeking high performance. The author identifies and modulates for India a range of initiatives - both structural and thematic - based largely on the reform experience of countries like the UK, Australia, Sweden and New Zealand. The book is divided into four sections: section one looks at the civil services in India today; section two deals with the institutional framework for reforms; section three discusses the organizational framework of reforms; and section four examines the legal and ethical framework of civil service reforms. Available in OSO: