Today, being a Sunday of ceaseless, unending monsoon showers, pouring cats and dogs across the length and breath of singara chennai, making the already battered roads impassable, with its drainage overflowing, potholes swelling, and vegetable prices soaring, all to new heights, while i at home, was for once, quietly sipping my morning cuppa tea with THE HINDU for company, flipping through the vast chunck of typos and fonts of all hues and shades, set my eyes on a perturbing news article "Corporate offers for Civil servants worry UPSC." This set my thought process a bit excited, nay ignited, (what with a strong cuppa tea acting the much needed stimulant) and thus, with tea in hand and a pen by my side, I began to give shape to my little myriad thoughts which i have converted below, from manucriptual to typescriptual format.

If Sardar Vallabhai Patel who introduced the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in place of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) were alive now, he would have ample cause for deep regret at the debilitating state of affairs to which his brain child - the IAS has degenerated into.

This latest Corporate trend of wooing the Civil servants in large numbers to their massive fold, is indeed part of a larger malaise. By unofficial estimates, already, a whopping five per cent of the officers have been given a red carpet welcome to the world of IT and IT enabled services with lucrative pays and perks, sometimes even ten times higher than what they would have earned in the governmental set up. The loss of the cream of the country, who are responsible for stemming the rot in the political system and administration to a great extent, housing some of the most brilliant and dynamic minds, to Corporates is indeed more alarming than what is made out to be.

M.N. Vijayakumar, IAS, Karnataka cadre - has served in Karnataka for the last 25 years. And he is only one of three IAS officers, of the 200 or so working in Karnataka, who has filed his assets and liabilities.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Vijayakumar, currently of the Principal Secretary grade, has been transferred six times in six months during the H.D. Kumaraswamy regime.
From September 2006 to February 2007, Vijayakumar has sat on a different seat in a different office in a different capacity-each time for "reporting serious corrupt practices by senior officers". His wife, Jayashree J.N., has now launched a spirited, even brave, campaign on the web that throws light on how the IAS folk deal with "black sheep" in their midst and how they use the convenient alibi of "disobedience" to quell debate, discussion and action.

VINAY KUMAR VERMA, IPS, Uttar Pradesh cadre - was SP of State Crime Records Bureau; shifted to Mirzapur as SP, from where within five weeks brought to the Power Corporation; within four days was shifted to Fatehpur PAC, immediately shunted to Bijnore, and five weeks later to Jaunpur.

RAJAT MODWEL, a 1990 batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre, quit after seven years of service. Took study leave to get an MBA from London after which he joined McKinsey & Co. Realised that there were better opportunities for more interesting work outside the IAS.

H.M. PANDE of the Tamil Nadu IAS cadre is under suspension. Was chargesheeted for abetting the then state minister Selvaganapathy to permit a hotel to violate building laws. He also faces an enquiry in a deal relating to purchase of water pipes worth Rs 5 crore.

These are just tips of the bigger iceberg. Adding to these woes, it is indeed a 'nationally acknowledged fact' that the civil servants are ranked very low on innovation, implementation, involvement, etc., by all and sundry, including politicians, academicians and and the judiciary, thus affecting their morale and self-esteem.

Civil servants like IAS Officers, who join main stream administration in the Government through a cumbersome, laborious competitive process, are generally highly competent and motivated when they enter the service, in the initial stages. However, as years progress, there is an alarming decline in dedication levels, morale, commitment and efficiency. The most important reason for this decline is the dictatorial power of destruction available to the vast majority of the politicians, mostly illiterate, who deem it their pleasure to harass the efficent and brilliant civil servant according to their own whims and fancies, thus throwing all forms of decorum to the wind. Added to this, comes the problem of a a transfer per se, of being shifted to a job that carries no patronage or perks.

Under these vituperative circumstances, the Corporate bandwagon's olive branch to the Civil servants in distress indeed makes the IAS Officer sit up and heave a sigh of great relief, and at the same time heralds the distress signal to the Government's efforts at administrative progress and development.

It is time the UPSC and the Government machinery gears up to face this disturbing challenge to its administrative line up, and woke up to this 'civil drain', or the day is not far off when the civil service system which, till now, has been the backbone of the administrative machinery of the nation, will become the ‘stapes', or the ‘stirrup', or the ‘incus' or the ‘anvil', the smallest bone in the 'human' body and of least significance and little value.

DISCLAIMER: The info given in green italics, are news items used here to authenticate and validate the main issue in focus.