Civil Services Reforms in India

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One of India's most renowned police officers recently argued that the government should implement the "Nitipath" program, which would be similar to Agnipath and the short service commission for military personnel.

The framework of the Scheme

• After 10, 25, and 30 years of service, officers may be filtered out.
• By doing this, the top-heavy structure would be fixed, and a culture of excellence and public service would be fostered.
• The amount of apex-level positions and career routes does not limit the government's ability to hire four times as many applicants at the entry-level.
• We can have 4,000 officers enter service each year as opposed to the 600–1,000 individuals currently being appointed to the AIS.
• After a performance evaluation after the fourth year, just 25% of them will be kept.

Advantage

• As a result, there will be a large influx of young, enthusiastic officers at the junior levels, who will have significant incentives to perform well and gain experience working for the government.
• The top 4,000 all-India rank holders' average quality won't change noticeably from that of the top 1,000. Therefore, a four-year review period will give the government access to more information than just test and interview results.
• After serving in the government for four years, employees will have promising job opportunities. It is highly possible that many people may willingly decide to depart and pursue further education or independent work. The broader economy will gain from the inclusion of such a young, qualified, and experienced managerial cadre.
• A path to a semi-structural reform of India's administrative apparatus will be made possible by the implementation of performance reviews and exit filters every five years.
• People who may have been rejected at lower levels but have since distinguished themselves can be admitted again under a lateral entrance scheme.

Area of reform

Conversion of ICS into IAS:

• After the conversion of ICS into IAS following Independence, it failed to incorporate a more indigenous element.
• This was due to the fact that there were no real attempts to connect IAS with our unique, mostly Indian ideology of public administration.
• As a result, the only difference between ICS and IAS was in the abbreviations.
• Even after Independence, the governing principles of notable Indian leaders like Arya Chanakya, Rajendra Chola, Harihara and Bukka of Vijayanagara, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, or Sayajirao Gaikwad were still generally disregarded.

Unnecessary and Excessive Security Measure:

• To begin with, the sturdy firewall that shields employees of the civil service need to be reviewed.
• One almost never looks back, never looks around, and more crucially, never looks inside after joining the elite club of civil workers.
• Their superiority complex and arrogance affect their thinking, and more concerningly, this security blanket gives them a sense of permanence in power relative to their politician employers, making them oblivious to and careless about people's expectations.

Lack of Systematic Mechanism:

• It is also necessary to have a built-in system to assure periodic de-thick-skinning through reinstalling a sense of purpose and motivation. Overprotective security encourages callousness and carelessness.
• The idealistic strugglers of yesterday quickly integrate themselves into the "establishment" of today.
• Regularly holding creative exams that are experienced- and knowledge-based may assist to prevent this.
• Several civil service officers' actions demonstrate their complete contempt for accountability and transparency.

Lack of Specialization:

• Administrative staff members are tasked with handling a variety of problems that call for specialized knowledge.
• How can a secretary for steel and mining today tackle a task for a secretary for culture tomorrow?
• Although generalists are important, it would be practical to divide IAS officers into at least four to five distinct groups in the modern world, such as finance, infra development and natural resource management, education-culture, and social ministries like social justice, labor, women and children, etc.
• This would increase the domain knowledge on the table and equip the officers to make better informed and perceptive decisions.

Initiatives

• This is a national programme for building the capacity of the civil service, called Mission Karmayogi (NPCSCB). It is a thorough overhaul of the system for enhancing capacity at the individual, institutional, and system levels for effective public service delivery.
• Reforming Lateral Entrance: Lateral entry refers to the selection of individuals from the private sector for government administrative positions despite their lack of participation in or selection inside a bureaucratic structure.
• This is significant because public service delivery systems would not function properly today without highly qualified and driven professionals in charge of administrative matters.
• e-Samiksha: A real-time online system for tracking choices made by the government at the highest level regarding the execution of significant government programs and projects.
• Citizen Charters: The government has mandated that all Ministries and Departments have Citizen Charters, which are routinely updated and evaluated.
• The National Conference on e-Governance gives the government a forum to interact with specialists, and intellectuals from business and academia, and to share experiences related to e-Governance programs.
• CPGRAMS, or Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System:
• The National Informatics Center (Ministry of Electronics and IT [MeitY]) created an online web-enabled system in collaboration with the Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG).
• The CPGRAMS offers the option to file a complaint online from any location. It allows the citizen to follow their complaint online as it is being investigated by the relevant departments and also allows DARPG to keep track of the complaint.

Way ahead

• The state institution in charge of managing public affairs has new issues that reforms are a logical reaction to; at the heart of such an endeavor is the effort to strengthen administrative capabilities in the altered environment.
• The emphasis must be on external accountability mechanisms like citizen charters, social audits, and encouraging outcome orientation among civil officials because civil servants are accountable to political executives, and this causes the politicization of civil services.
• Governmental capability generally lags behind socioeconomic progress everywhere in the world.
• In India, there is a severe and expanding governance gap. It will take enough talent, with the right incentives and training, to bridge it.

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Jan Dhan Yojana Achievements

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY): Achievements so far

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The National Mission for Financial Inclusion known as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) recently concluded eight years of successful operation.

Since its commencement, more than 46.25 crore beneficiaries have deposited money through PMJDY, totalling Rs. 1,73,954 crores.

What is Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)?

• The Pradhan Mantri The National Mission for Financial Inclusion is known as Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY).
• It guarantees cheap access to financial services such as banking, savings, deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance, and pension.
• The cornerstone of people-centred economic efforts has been PMJDY.
• All of these programs, including Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Covid-19 financial aid, PM-KISAN, increased wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA), and life and health insurance coverage, begin with the provision of bank accounts for every adult, which PMJDY is almost done with.

Objectives:

• Ensure affordable access to financial products and services.
• Use of technology to increase reach and reduce costs.

Basic principles of the plan:

• Finance for the unbanked: Simple KYC, e-KYC, account opening in camp mode, no balance, and no fees are required for the opening of a basic savings bank deposit (BSBD) account.
• Protecting the unprotected: issuing indigenous debit cards with free accident insurance coverage of Rs. 2 lakhs that can be used for cash withdrawals and payments at merchant locations.
• Filling the funding gap: Other financial products include micro-credit, micro-pension, micro-overdraft, and micro-insurance.

Pillars of the Scheme

• Branch and banking correspondents provide universal access to banking services.
• Basic savings bank accounts come with an Rs. 10,000 overdraft capacity available to all qualified adults.
• Promoting saves, using ATMs, preparing for credit, obtaining insurance and pensions, and using simple mobile phones for banking are all part of the financial literacy program.
• To give banks some protection against defaults, the Credit Guarantee Fund was established.
• Insurance: On accounts opened between August 15, 2014, and January 31, 2015, accident coverage of up to Rs. 1,00,000 and life coverage of Rs. 30,000 are available.
• Plan for pensions in the unorganised sector.

The important strategy used in PMJDY is based on prior knowledge:

• Instead of the previous techniques of opening accounts offline with vendor technology lock-in, accounts are now opened online in the core banking system of banks.
• RuPay debit card interoperability or Aadhaar-enabled payment system interoperability (AePS).
• Business correspondents with a fixed point.
• e-KYC and/or simplified KYC procedures in place of onerous KYC requirements

Achievements of the Scheme

Approach to digital banking:

• In the banks' main banking system, new accounts are opened online.
• Instead of "Every Household," the emphasis is now on "Every Unbanked Adult."

Business correspondents with a fixed point.

• e-KYC or simplified KYC in place of onerous KYC requirements.
• PMJDY Expansion with New Features
• The phrase "Every Household" is replaced with "Every Unbanked Adult."

Insurance for a RuPay Card

• For PMJDY accounts opened after August 28, 2018, the free accidental insurance coverage on RuPay cards rose from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 2 lakh.
• By using the RuPay debit card or the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System, interoperability is made possible (AePS).

Improved overdraft facilities:

• Overdraft (OD) limit increased from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 10,000, with an additional Rs. 2,000 allowed (without conditions).
• OD's upper age limit has been raised from 60 to 65 years old.

App called Jan Dhan Darshak:

• In order to give citizens a platform for finding banking contact points such as bank branches, ATMs, Bank Mitras, Post Offices, etc. around the nation, the Jan Dhan Darshak App was launched.

Increased Financial Inclusion:

• Within 10 days of the Covid-19-related nationwide lockdown, ex-gratia payments were credited to more than 20 crore women's PMJDY accounts.

• As of August 10, 2022, PMJDY Accounts were 46.25 crore, up from 14.72 crores in March 2015.
• Out of the 46.25 crore PMJDY accounts in existence as of August 22, 37.57 crores (81.2%) are active.
• Zero balance accounts make up just 8.2% of PMJDY accounts.
• In the period of August 22 to August 15, deposits climbed by around 7.60 times while accounts increased by 2.58 times.

The formalization of the financial system

• It gives the poor a way to transfer their savings into the legal system and a way to send money to their families in rural areas, freeing them from the control of predatory money lenders.

Leakage Prevention:

• DBTs through PM Jan Dhan accounts have made sure that each rupee reaches its intended recipient and stop systematic leakage.

• Streamlined DBT transactions
• The qualifying recipients receive their DBT on time thanks to close monitoring to prevent DBT failures in collaboration with the DBT Mission, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), banks, and numerous other Ministries.
• Digital transactions: From 978 crore in FY 2016–17 to 7,195 crore in FY 2021–22, there were more digital transactions overall.
• The overall number of financial transactions using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) surged from 1.79 crores in FY 2016–17 to 4,596 crore in FY21

Financial Inclusion

• The process of ensuring vulnerable groups, such as weaker parts and low-income groups, have inexpensive access to financial services and timely and adequate financing when needed is known as financial inclusion.
• Financial inclusion is a crucial component of the development process in a multiethnic nation like India. Since the country's independence, the joint efforts of succeeding governments, oversight bodies, and civil society have contributed to widening the country's financial inclusion net.
• Since a transaction account enables people to keep money and send and receive payments, having access to one is the first step toward greater financial inclusion.
• An account for transactions acts as a doorway to additional financial services.

Way ahead

• Make an effort to guarantee that PMJDY account holders are covered by microinsurance programs.
• It will be attempted to cover eligible PMJDY account holders under PMJJBY and PMSBY.
• The same has already been stated to banks.
• Promoting the use of digital payments, such as the RuPay debit card, among PMJDY account holders by setting up acceptance infrastructure throughout India
• enhancing account holders' access to microcredit and micro-investments such as flexi-recurring deposits, etc.

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Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar campaign

Image Source - India Science

The Clean Coast Safe Sea Campaign, also known as Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar, began on the Indian Coasts.

About Clean Coast Safe Sea Campaign

• A 75-day citizen-led initiative is being run to collectively improve ocean health.
• A cleanliness initiative called "Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar/Clean Coast Safe Sea" will be carried out along the whole coastline of India in collaboration with other charitable groups and the local community.

Involved ministries

• Along with numerous departments of the centre and state governments, non-governmental organisations, and educational institutions, this campaign will involve the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the National Service Scheme (NSS), the Indian Coast Guard, and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Aim

• There will be an effort to increase public awareness of the harm that plastic causes to the environment and the threat that declining ocean health poses to the ecological balance.

3 overarching strategy objectives:

• Consume Cautiously
• Sort household trash and
• Dispose of it responsibly.

Mitram Eco

• A smartphone app called "Eco Mitram" has been released to raise awareness of the initiative and to encourage regular people to sign up voluntarily for the beach cleaning effort.

Other comparable steps:

UN campaign for "Coastal Clean Seas"

• India has endorsed the UN's "Coastal Clean Seas" initiative.
• Numerous initiatives that directly relate to the "Swachh Bharat" concept have been embraced and have shown to be very beneficial

Day of the Global Coastal Cleanup

• Every year on the third Saturday in September, people all across the world observe International Coastal Cleanup Day.

India has implemented a statewide ban on single-use plastic beginning on July 1st, 2022, due to the risks posed by plastic trash.

Significance

• Sustainable Development Goal 14 and its target 14.1
• These initiatives are a broad approach to support efforts to prevent pollution from both land-based and offshore activities, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 14 and its target 14.1.
• It seeks to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution by 2025.

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