Lucknow: Minister and former IPS officer Asim Arun has urged a sweeping overhaul of India’s civil services, calling for a shift from a generalist bureaucracy to a specialisation-driven system in which officers are recruited, trained and posted in defined domains.Arun told TOI that India’s administrative structure must change to meet the demands of a fast-evolving economy and the ambition of becoming a developed nation. “Bharat will be built by specialists, not generalists. Our bureaucracy must choose a field. Every bureaucrat should have to choose a domain and specialise in that. The process of recruitment itself should also be based on specialisation,” he said.Citing the Indian Foreign Service as an example, Arun argued that modern diplomacy requires officers to enter with relevant academic grounding and language skills. He said candidates aiming for IFS should be graduates in political science and should know at least one foreign language, suggesting that entry qualifications be more closely aligned with job requirements.Arun’s remarks come amid renewed debate on the practicality of govt policymaking after Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel recently said policies must be realistic and implementable rather than merely attractive on paper. Referring to a scooter distribution scheme, the Governor questioned whether decision-making was adequately grounded in on-ground feasibility, prompting wider scrutiny of how policies are drafted and executed.Supporting the Governor’s concerns, Arun said the discussion should focus on systemic design rather than individual officers, arguing that responsibilities are often assigned without ensuring domain competence. He said that 76 years after the Constitution came into force, India should reassess whether the “steel frame” model remains suited to contemporary governance.While pointing to areas where India has built globally respected institutional capabilities, including election management and disaster response, Arun said chronic weaknesses persist in sectors that need deeper technical capacity. He cited urban planning, land administration, municipal governance and traffic management as fields constrained by structural gaps.On recruitment, Arun proposed moving beyond a single common examination as the primary gateway across services, advocating cadre-specific selection. Revenue officers, he said, should have grounding in taxation or finance; audit officers in accounting; police officers in law and forensics; and ministries handling health, education, forestry and finance should rely more on professionals with relevant expertise.He also called for greater flexibility in postings through a choice-cum-merit system based on qualifications, aptitude and interests, and backed lateral entry and lateral exit to bring experienced professionals into govt for fixed tenures.
