Kevadiya (Gujarat): Union Minister of State, Dr Jitendra Singh Friday said that in recent years there has been a sort of “democratisation” of Civil Services and other avenues due to technology driven accessibility to preparatory material which has, of late, enabled even the aspirants from remotest parts of India to make it to IAS and other All India Services.
This new trend will have a bearing on our future as well, said the Minister. Technology has been the biggest leveller, with mobile phone and internet penetrating the countryside and everybody gaining access to knowledge, he said.
“The demography of the entire Civil Services has changed, – you have now toppers from Punjab, Haryana, even three Civil Services Exam toppers were all girls this year, from different States of India, earlier it was confined to a handful of States,” said Dr Jitendra Singh while addressing the IAS Probationers at the 98th Foundation Course of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), bringing together 560 Officer Trainees from IAS including 16 Civil Services of India and 3 Civil Services of Bhutan, being conducted at Kevadiya, Gujarat.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, in the last 9-10 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “cautiously introduced” fundamental changes in Governance and the grooming of Civil Servants. Symbolically, “PM Modi has moved India out of Delhi” and many events are now being organised across the country, he said.
“So, this is a kind of a new dimension, and I think it’s very much in keeping with the world order today… We have to live up to the global benchmarks and the global parameters,” he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the focus of the Government, under the leadership of PM Modi, has been on transparency, accountability and in-time delivery of services by the Government.
“PM Modi has stressed that the age of working in silos is over and today it is the ‘Whole of Government’ approach,” he said.
India’s Vaccine Success story and Covid management, Chandrayaan and Aditya-L1 solar missions or the SVAMITVA Land Mapping scheme are best examples of the Government, Scientific Laboratories, Academia, Startups and Industry, all pooling their resources to achieve success.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, Civil Services officers have to turn into instruments of public service delivery of the Government’s citizen centric schemes.
The DoPT Minister said that the three-month mandatory stint of new IAS Officers with the Central Ministries / Departments was a visionary idea by PM Modi in 2015 to expose them to the top echelons of the Government at the commencement of their training.
“Assistant Secretaries are expected to give their inputs for improvement in various Flagship Programmes in different Ministries/Departments of Government of India. This not only gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their skill and talent but also an opportunity to make a presentation before the Prime Minister of India, which is an opportunity that might have eluded their senior batches,” he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the posting of Assistant Secretaries in Government of India had been introduced, primarily with two objectives. First, that the young officers could get an exposure of the working in Government of India instead of going straight to the State Government. Secondly, it also helps in enabling the newly selected IAS officers to find their mentors and anchors among their seniors in the Union Government, to whom they can reach out at time of need. (Agencies)
