Union minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said the expectations from a civil servant have changed and today he is expected to be far more accessible, transparent and accountable.
Addressing an event, he said the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of today is no longer the IAS of yesteryears, with the priorities constantly changing, the mechanisms of delivery changing and even training patterns at LalBahadurShastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie is changing.
“Above all, the expectations from a civil servant have also changed and today he is expected to be far more accessible, far more transparent and far more accountable,” said Singh, the minister of state for personnel.
Keeping all these consistencies in mind, he recalled that over the last nearly seven years, there have been revolutionary decisions taken to change the face of governance in India.
Enumerating a few among them, Singh mentioned the decision to allow self-attestation of certificates without attestation of a gazetted officer or anyone else, which was taken immediately after the Modi government came into power in 2014, according to a Personnel Ministry statement.
This was followed by abolition of interviews for selection to government jobs in certain categories, introduction of three months’ stint for new IAS officers in the central government before going to their respective state/UT cadre and amendment in Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 which included making the briber-giver also culpable to offence, among others, he said.
Addressing the 42nd Annual General Meeting of the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) J&K branch in his capacity as national chairman IIPA, Singh said that the timing of the meeting in Jammu is crucial on two accounts. First, on the one hand, under Prime Minister NarendraModi, civil services and governance are witnessing some of the most pathbreaking reforms which were unimaginable till a few years ago, the minister said.