UPSC Civil Services: Modi Government May Bundle Indian Bureaucracy Into Just 3-4 Divisions, Says Report

In a bid to rationalise the civil services in the country, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is likely to reduce the more than 60 civil services in the country to about three or four, reports The Print.

According to the report, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has prepared a five year vision document in which it has been emphasised that the government will try to drastically reduce the number of services to ensure harmonious functioning of the state machinery.

“Rationalising the services essentially means reducing the number down from the existing 60-plus civil services to about three-four,” an official from DoPT was quoted in the report as saying.

“The idea was proposed last year by NITI Aayog and the government will now seek to implement it,” the official added.

The civil services in India comprises of more tha 60 specialised services classified into Group A and Group B. The Group A include the IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS among 25 other services.

As per the report, no decision regarding how to undertake the rationalsation has been done by the government. However, a possible solution could be to classify the civil services into three groups.

“One way of doing it is dividing the services into Indian Administrative Service, which would include all non-technical services; the Indian Police Service that would include all security-related services and the Indian Technical Services, which would include all technical services,” the official said.

“This is just one idea doing the rounds…the services could be rationalised in other ways too,” the official added.