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Unreformed Civil Service
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A s an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, N C Saxena, author of “Has the IAS Failed the Nation? An Insider’s View” (EPW, 23 June 2018), has contributed to every field of administration. As secretary to the Ministry of Rural Development, he developed a strategy for evaluating rural development projects for alleviating poverty. During his term as district collector of Aligarh, the communally sensitive district saw no riots. Post his retirement, he has contributed towards developing a rights-based policy, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, for providing employment to the rural poor.
In his article, Saxena talks of the issues confronting the country, primarily the provision of education and health services, as well as rations, activities that the civil service is supposed to monitor. In these areas, the IAS, as a group of administrators, is failing today. As Saxena states,
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