What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver: An Insider’s View

To stop the rot, you need to know
what’s rotting!
The problems are aplenty: weak governance, poor design
and implementation of welfare programmes, abysmal
record management, unabated corruption, wasteful public
expenditure and the like.
Despite their integrity, hard work and competence, IAS
officers find themselves trapped in many such situations. In
addition, they receive little or no support from the top and
bottom rungs.
In this part memoir, part scholarly disquisition, the author
analyses the current situation in India, and suggests policy
changes aimed at transforming individual competencies of
IAS officers into better collective outcomes for the larger
common good.
Hailed by some as India’s steel frame and reviled by others as
a relic of the colonial past, the Indian Administrative Service is
an enigma for most. In this candid insider account, Naresh
Saxena gives the IAS a human face and shares valuable ideas
for administrative reform.
Jean Dréze, Honorary Professor, Delhi School of Economics