I ended Part I with key reforms recommended by the Committee on Civil Services Examination and Recruitment Methods, headed by Dr Daulat Singh Kothari, former Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The high-powered committee included noted bureaucrats, diplomats, educationists and other reformists, including Bhagwan Sahay, G Parthasarathi, M L Dhar, M V Mathur, S Chakravarti and D R Kohli.

These experts spent two years (1974–1976) to consensually arrive at the needed reforms after the widest possible consultations and by delving deep into global best practices, including the British Home Civil Service and the French Civil Service systems of recruitment and training. Altogether, the committee recommended 55 reforms, many of them with far-reaching consequences.

The question that begs an answer is: Which reforms were implemented, and which were not? Here is the story in brief.

Firstly, Neither Here Nor There – from the 1979 exam cycle, the Government of India implemented part of the recommendations of the Kothari Committee, particularly the three-stage process — Preliminary, Mains and Personality Test — which remains broadly in place today. The system adopted was:

Age Limit and Attempts Allowed

I posit that the above changes might have looked revolutionary five decades ago, but today they are neither here nor there and are in urgent need of rebooting.

35 Different Examinations

From 1979 onwards, nearly 35 optional subjects were allowed, from which candidates had to choose two. These included science and engineering (13), social sciences and humanities (12) and literature papers (20), including incomprehensible French, German and Russian.

Whatever the rationale for allowing 35 optional papers in the Mains exam, it severely compromised the integrity of the examination system and effectively converted one examination into 35. Many optional subjects provided an undue advantage to candidates, apart from having no relevance in testing suitability for the civil services.

Bigger Reforms Ignored

Key recommendations of the Kothari Committee that remain unimplemented to date:

Had the key foundational reforms recommended by the Kothari Committee been implemented by the government of the day, Bharat would have had a different type of civil service.

It was not to be. And the collateral damage of this inaction has been humongous.

I first examine the report of various committees appointed after the Kothari Committee and their recommendations to reform the civil services, including reforms to the Civil Services Examination. Here they are:

Satish Chandra Committee........

© News18