lead story

The glory and aura attached to the Indian Civil Services is quite appealing. But the experience of all service cadres is not as heartening. The Indian Information Service (IIS) is one such cadre which has been facing non-preference by Civil Services aspirants. The IIS once enjoyed the third slot in the list of Civil Services rankings but now stands at the last leg. This is to juxtapose the growing communication and information needs of a developing country like India which is yet to make a mark on international stage. The disappointing fact is that burgeoning communication of the Central Government with Indian States and members of the international community is currently looked after by a meagre 475 number of IIS officers only.

At present the attrition rate in the IIS is approximately 40 percent of which 10 percent of the appointees leave the service without any notice due to stagnant career prospects. More of such issues have been the cause of concern for the IIS Group 'A' Officers' Association.

The current state of affairs has also made the association put forth a proposal to the controlling authority, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, for a fourth cadre review. The proposal for the review has brought to light several issues which have led to the dismal state of affairs of the IIS service.

An association analysis says, "The Cadre, however, at present suffers from the problem of low morale and severe manpower shortage apart from structural shortcomings in the face of increasing challenges and demands of IIS officers at various levels in several organizations. The conditions of the service officers are so demotivating that even though it is a Group A service and recruitment is through the prestigious Civil Service exam, only a very few candidates joined the service in the last eight years. Out of those who join the IIS, many leave within two years due to uninspiring prospects. The attrition rate is very high, so it is imperative that IIS service conditions are improved."

Why is it that the Civil Services aspirants are opting out of the Indian Information Service?

DISCOURAGING CAREER PROSPECTS
A flat career trajectory has been a major cause of concern. There are officers in the cadre who have been waiting for their promotion for as long as 15 to 26 years. Former Press Information Bureau Principal Director General S Narendra is one of the examples. He got his promotion straight to the rank of Principal DG after serving as Director for 26 years.

The association proposal highlights that lately, the "performance of officers at the junior level of the service has been questioned by some Ministries/Departments". As Bureaucracy Today takes a sense of the challenges in this service and learns that the performance dip is majorly because of a large number of officers stagnating at different levels.

The Indian Information Service was formed in 1969 and since then only three cadre reviews have been undertaken by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the controlling authority for the IIS.

The First Cadre Review of the Service was conducted in 1982 (effective from November, 1982). The Second Cadre Review was done in 1989 (effective from August, 1990). The Third Cadre Review of IIS Group 'A' was done in 2006. There hasn't been any cadre review of Group B officers since 1960.

If we analyse the period between 1996 and 2011, 40 percent of the existing vacancies have accumulated in these 15 years due to non-planning of the recruitment.

While for Group A the entry to the service is through the Civil Services Exam at the level of Grade I, the entry point for Group B which is essentially a feeder cadre, starts at the level of Grade IV. What adds to the agony for the officers is the fact that in spite of the difference in the service entry, the exit point for IIS officers of Group A and those of Group B is the same. The essential gap which is to be kept between Grade IV and Grade I officers is not maintained which leads to heart burn for most of the officers.

It may be noted that members of the Group B IIS service had been persistently raising demand to abolish Grade IV and to allow officers to directly join at Grade III as section officers. The I & B Ministry had been pushing this case for the past six to seven years but the DoPT and the UPSC raised objections on the adverse effect it will have on the structure of the service of Group B. "The Ministry did not do any recruitment during this period which further escalated the problem," said an IIS officer on condition of anonymity.

In fact, the IIS is the only service which is without leave reserved and training reserved posts. In some cases officers continue to hold posts as additional charge for two to three years which adds to the frustration of an officer at a State unit. "This is also one of the major reasons why IIS officers do not prefer their postings in State capitals or for that matter in State centres of various media units," confides another IIS officer posted in one of the state capitals.

FAULTY CADRE MANAGEMENT
If we look at the past three cadre reviews and promotions the deviationsThe Departmental Promotion from the slated norms that are followed in other services which are much more streamlined are very evident. While in other Civil Services, officers on field posts are shifted in a maximum of six years, IIS officers are seen continuing on field posts for as long as 19 years. As per the DoPT guidelines cadre reviews are supposed to happen every five years, which is common in other services, but the Group 'A' IIS service has only seen three cadre reviews since 1964.






The Departmental Promotion Committee of 2005 considered the career prospects of the three consecutive batches of 1982, 1983 and 1984. As a result, all the 23 officers of these batches got promoted to the rank of Additional Director General.

As there was no direct recruitment to this service from 1974 to 1981, the 1982 batch has been on the greener pastures. Since officers in the rank of DG retired in 2007, six vacancies were occupied by the 1982 batch officers, the second promotion in two years.



As the officers in the rank of Special Secretary retired, 14 officers of the 1982 batch of the Selection Grade rank were further promoted to the Special Secretary rank in March 2009.

No officer of the 1982 batch of any other service will be appointed to the rank of Special Secretary and that too for a tenure of nine years. This imbalance in the structure has halted promotions for the 1983 and 1984 batches because by that time all the officers in the ranks of Additional DG and DG will retire. This anomaly in the structure will again be visible when the appointment of the next Principal DG happens in 2019 and will remain till 2021.

Popular opinion among officers is that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is working in a very narrow shell because of which cadre management is not moving in the right direction. It is mainly because the department in the Ministry looking after cadre management is mostly manned by IAS officers. An IIS officer is not involved in coordination of the policy framework for cadre management. Speaking to Bureaucracy Today Former Principal DG S Narendra said, "An attempt was made in 1988-89 under late Gopi Arora as Secretary to rectify and induct a senior IIS professional for 'policy think-tank'. But other service vested interests converted the post into the Central Staffing post,reserved for IAS in the rank of Additional Secretary. And has become a feeder for posts in the so-called autonomous PSB."




The larger opinion is that unless the Ministry puts an IIS officer on the job whose stake lies in cadre review, the government will not get a perspective based on the objective of resolving the issues that exist in the cadre structure of the IIS. Some officers also opine that people look for promotions rather than the next posting. "An officer working on the same post for more than fifteen years will obviously develop vested interests. The creation of any service is not meant for promoting the interests of its members. While the Ministry has not paid much attention to cadre management, officers are promoting their interests by getting foreign postings," said an officer on condition of anonymity.

STRUCTURAL IMBALANCES
The Indian Information Service is service is divided into Group 'A' and Group 'B' services of which Group 'A' officers are inducted through the Civil Service Exam of the UPSC. Prior to 1960, the officers enrolled were recruited separately for each Media Unit through the Union Public Service Commission from open market. There was no direct recruitment to this service from 1974 to 1981. It is during this halt in recruitments that several distortions crept into the structure of the service.

The recruitment to the posts of the Junior Time Scale, the entry point of Group A service of the IIS, is by 50 percent promotion of Group B officers with a three-year regular service or by direct selection through the UPSC.

What Bureaucracy Today understood while talking to a number of IIS appointees is that there is a sense of utter disgust among officers of the lower hierarchy. While other Civil Services members don't create a doubt whether they are part of the elite lot, IIS officers are often asked awkwardly whether they have been promoted from the Group B service.

Group B officers think that after working for three years at the functional level they are on a par with Group A officers who join directly at the Junior Grade to get trained for two years for a knowhow of working in the media and communication fields.

The Group A officers at the junior grade think that it is this irony that in spite of passing the Civil Services Exam and then going through rigorous training in the premier institutes of India for two years they are confused with Group B whose members start as Grade IV officers.

The combined strength of ideal duty posts under the Junior and Senior time scales as per Department of Personnel and Training guidelines is 143 while the actual duty posts at present under the Senior and Junior time scales are 159 and 151 respectively. The sanctioned percentage is 30 but actually Senior and Junior time scale posts stand at 33.47 percent and 31.79 percent, respectively.

As we go above the pyramid this gap between required personnel at senior posts and the existing duty posts widens. The ideal duty posts at the Junior Administrative grade and Non-Functional Selection Grade are 238 while actually the existing posts are only 121. There is a sharp coarctation as we go upwards in the structure of the service.

The proposal submitted by the association states, "The structure of Indian Information Service cadre has become lopsided over the years especially after the last cadre review. The IIS cadre officers are on the one hand overworked due to limited manpower and on the other hand there is increased demand for IIS officers from various ministries/ departments and organizations."

LACK OF ATTENTION BY I & B MINISTRY
A similar proposal has been lying with the I & B Ministry for the last one year. It is also said that the Ministry had lost the proposal in the consultation process. When Bureaucracy Today spoke to Ministry officials they denied any such report being lost but said that a cadre review proposal has been pending for a year and a half. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Raghu Menon did not respond to the interview request choosing not to comment on the issue. Ideally the proposal must have got processed and accepted in totality or in part or rejected, but it should have been given its due credence.

It is because of this reason that the fourth cadre review proposal has come with the suggestion for the formation of an Indian Information Board on the lines of the Railway Board or the Central Board of Direct Taxes which would understand the issues of the IIS at the policy level, prepare the proposal and furnish it to the Ministry for its consideration.

Besides this, the proposal has suggested a structural overhaul in its media units such as the PIB, RNI and DAVP which will also include overhauling Doordarshan and Prasar Bharati taking a call on the uncertainty looming over them.

An attempt has been made in the proposed cadre review to move towards an ideal pyramid structure. Indeed the IIS fraternity is now finally raising its voice not only for the betterment of the cadre but also because the Ministry seems to be rendering a deaf ear to the developments happening around the world in the communication system and the fact that the service men need to upgrade themselves technologically.

The proposal states, "the media organizations are working at a very low efficiency level, as they do not have sufficient manpower at the Headquarters and as well as at the regional and branch offices. The population of the country has increased over the years and new States have also been formed but the organizational structure of the media units has not been reworked and widened to reach out to the common man in an effective manner. In fact, due to ERC recommendations which had not taken ground realities and needs of Aam Aadmi into account, the media units have been shrunk."

The proposal has clearly highlighted the burgeoning needs of effective communication in the growing population of the country. The Government media units are currently not manned enough to communicate the message at the grassroots level. The proposal highlights the dismal state as it says, "To give more clear-cut picture, Directorate of Field Publicity (DFP) has 207 units in the country and mostly unequipped in terms of manpower and tools to carry out their programme at grassroots level. In Madhya Pradesh, which has 50 districts and about 50,000- odd villages, DFP has got 8 units in the whole State to carry out programmes. So even with the present strength, it would take 21 years for DFP unit to visit the same village again."


The need for Indian Information service Officers is ever increasing with so many government schemes on slate. The proposal states, "There is need for ensuring transparency and inclusive growth. The ideal governance envisages transparency, accountability and is responsive. When the government is talking of inclusive growth in the era of globalization it essentially means a totally changed domestic environment. Flagship Programmes of the government need to be communicated to target population and feedback on its implementation is required for corrective action." The fraternity has proposed many changes for the existing media units of the Government that are popularly termed 'white elephants' by the private media. This is primarily because of the fact that these organizations have failed to be in tandem with the technological and societal changes being witnessed across the media world.

It is to be seen how much of the proposal in totality or in part is taken up by the I&B Ministry. The Ministry is already carrying the baggage of putting Indian Broadcasting Service in a shambles where officers of the 1982 and 1983 batches have been working on the same posts for 28 years. The Expenditure Reforms Commission under the chairmanship of former Finance Secretary KP Geethakrishnan, constituted in 2000, clearly indicates the dismal state of the media units under the Ministry. The Commission suggests closure of units such as the DFP and Song and Drama Division and disinvestment of the DAVP and the PIB. The low morale of IIS officers and stagnation in service is one of the major causes for non-performance of these units. The Ministry would definitely not like to carry the baggage of improper and ill-manned network system for the Indian Information Service at the cost of information dissemination which is its prime mandate. Will it like to take that chance? The fourth cadre (information structure) review proposal presents an ideal situation. It is to be seen how much of it becomes a reality.