Lateral entry runs into a babu wall
Earlier this year, Arvind Panagariya, former vice-chief of the government NITI Aayog, wrote in his book “India Unlimited – Reclaiming the Lost Glory” that Indian babus suffered from the socialist hangover, which has slowed down the pace of reforms the Modi sarkar wishes to introduce (Dilli Ka Babu, April 16. 2020). To buttress his view, he claimed that the government’s attempts to privatise several PSUs remained stalled for long despite Prime Minister Modi’s push to get Cabinet approval for the list of PSUs drawn up by the NITI Aayog. He also cited Modi’s initiative for lateral entry at the top levels of the bureaucracy. According to Panagariya, babus slowed down the process to the extent that at the very end of his term only nine officers could be inducted from outside.