Lateral Entry In Administration: Path To Efficiency & Productivity In Bureaucracy

Lateral entry refers to the appointment of specialists from the private sector at middle and senior-level positions in the Central government. Government has, from time to time, appointed some prominent persons for specific assignments in government, keeping in view their specialized knowledge and expertise in the domain area.

Need for Lateral Entry

• Changing Role of the State: The civil services were designed at a time when the state was all powerful. However, after the market-led reforms of 1991, the role of the state has reduced and it now acts as a facilitator. Thus, it becomes more critical for the government to ascertain the impact its policy decisions have on various stakeholders such as the private sector, non-profits, and general public.
• Attract New Talent: The lateral entry mode, which pertains to the appointment of specialists from private sector in government organisations, is an attempt by the government to bring in fresh talent into the bureaucracy.
• Shortage of Officers: There is a shortage of officers across states. This shortage results in poor implementation of socio-economic policies and programmes.
• Need of Specialized Policymaking: As the complexity of the economy increases, policymaking becomes a specialized activity. However regular bureaucrats remain generalists in nature due to their frequent transfers and postings.This creates an inherent need for the lateral entry of professionals into government service.
• Induce Professionalism in Bureaucracy: It will push the regular bureaucrats to improve their efficiency at work which will ensure competitiveness and meritocracy in the bureaucracy.
• Boost Innovation: The prevalent problems can be resolved efficiently by bringing in professionals from the private sector as they would bring in fresh ideas and promote innovative solutions.
• New Challenges to Governance: Emergence of phenomena like globalization, digitalization of governance, financial frauds, cybercrime, organized crime, terrorism, climate-change among others requires specialization and domain expertise.

Challenges associated with Lateral Entry

• Lack of Enabling Environment: Performance of the lateral entrants will depend on the enabling environment to a large extent. Lateral entrants from the private sector and academia may not work well with the bureaucracy. Differences in work culture and systemic inertia may reduce the efficiencies at work and defeat the purpose of lateral entry.
• Lack Field Experience: Bridging the gap between policy-making and ground-level implementation will be a challenging task for the lateral entrants as the vast field experience of a regular civil servant may not be available to a new lateral entrant.
• Scope of Nepotism and Corruption: Interests and motivation vary from person to person. Therefore, short-term entry of officers and a lack of properly defined procedures through lateral entry may lead to corrupt practices and give way to nepotism.
• Absence of Systemic Reforms: Bureaucracy needs major overhauling with systemic reforms, such as steps to reduce politicization of bureaucracy, revamping civil services training etc.
• Quality of Lateral Entrants: The recent lateral entry initiative would recruit professionals for only 3 years with remuneration not competitive with the private sector. Thus, the terms of recruitment may not be rewarding enough to attract the best of talents.

Lateral entry will bring in much-needed outside experience and take the system closer to the goal of “minimum government, maximum governance”. However, institutionalized lateral entry should be complemented with skilling of regular IAS officers in specialized domains over a period of time. This will enable them to compete on an equal footing with lateral entrants, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the government.