Importance of Good Government Servant in Public Administration – Essay

The government servants should have no right to strike and their grievances should be settled through Joint Consultative Machinery and Civil Service Tribunals.

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There should be a unified grading structure of the entire civil service, so as to facilitate the movement of officers from one area to another for which they are qualified and in which they may be required.

The present system of confidential reports should be replaced by performance reports, in which every government servant will have an opportunity of giving a resume of his performance during the year and getting his merits properly assessed for the purpose of promotion.

Greater opportunities should be provided to government servants of lower ranks to raise rapidly as high as their competence and performance warranty. With a view to streamlining the administration there should be an improvement of recruitment policies and procedures in the organisation of Government of India.

Pruning of excessive personnel, abolition of unnecessary and ineffective organisation, fixation of work norms, simplification and codification of rules, rationalization of holidays and strict limiting of overtime work and transfers.

We have seen that “major developments” were anticipated by ARC in Personnel Administration of the country. The commission called for a radical departure from the existing system including the structure of the civil service.

Its recommendation seeks a thorough reorganisation of the civil services in the country at all levels, into a number of functional services. Functional services would become specialist in a particular field of administration. The Commission was of the view that the generalist administrative service i.e., the I.A.S. should also become a functional service.

The ARC report on Personnel Administration was first examined by the Home Ministry and then by the Secretaries Committee. Both these had turned down the suggestion that the I.A.S. should be restricted to the land revenue administration looked after by the other functional services.

The Secretaries Committee held the view that Commission’s approach “is negative and needless denial to the country of the services of a body of officers possessing necessary qualifications, experience and aptitude in many other spheres of work”. Secretaries committee rejected the Commissions view that the I.A.S. is a “general purpose service”.

It observed “The I.A.S., more than any other service, work much closer to the community. As a district Officer, an I.A.S. Officer gets the opportunity of living among the people and getting to know them, their conditions of work and living and their problems, participating in planning and the implementation of developmental programmes, and of working with the Panchayati Raj institutions”.

Fulton Committee of U.K. had desired that an administrator should be close to people. The Secretaries Committee was of the view that, “By virtue of the kind and quality of experience gained, the I.A.S., is in a particularly favourable position to deal with wide variety of problems that affect the lives of the common people. This does not mean that they can take the place of specialists in the performance of technical work or even to guide and supervise it.

Officer is however a professional organizer, administrator and manager and his special skill and experience can be utilized in managerial capacities whenever needed”.