‘Intellectual foundation needed for reforms 3.0’
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‘Intellectual foundation needed for reforms 3.0’
Surojit Gupta / Jul 27, 2021, 06:35 IST
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Vijay Kelkar, a former finance secretary and veteran policymaker, has been closely associated with several crucial reform initiatives over the years. In an interview to TOI, Kelkar, who also served as the chairman of the 13th Finance Commission, calls for governance and administrati reforms as well as knowledge-based policies. Excerpts:
What should be the policy focus in the medium to long term?
Compared to 1991, there are several new problems. You have had a number of successful reforms measures in 1991 but, in some areas, there have been inadequacies. So, we have to handle both new challenges and some earlier ones as there are areas where we have not done enough progress.
Lateral Entry Is Fine. But What About Enhancing the IAS s Professional Competence?
The fatal failing of the Indian bureaucracy has been its low level of professional competence, because once a young civil servant joins the service, he is shuffled among various departments allowing him no time to acquire expertise in any field.
Enhancing the competence of IAS is required, but running it down does not help.
Certain facts may help us to assess the issue of lateral entry more objectively.
First, in the past too, experts were inducted at senior positions into the government without any advertisement. Many of them, such as Dr. Manmohan Singh, Bimal Jalan, Lovraj Kumar, Vijay Kelkar, Montek Ahluwalia, Rakesh Mohan, Jairam Ramesh and Arvind Subramanian, left a good impact and contributed to the governance substantially in senior positions. The fact that some of them later joined the ruling party and served as ministers did not invite criticism of their past contribution when they ser