Bye-bye, Gov; hello, happiness

Many civil servants are opting out of government jobs for the greener pastures of corporate India. Seetha looks at the trend

Sanjeev Kumar (name changed) first resigned from the government in early 2005. But he changed his mind. “I wasn’t mentally prepared for it,” he says. In end-2006, however, he decided he couldn’t take it any more and quit. He joined a real estate development firm in March, and is now leading its foray into a new sector. In 2006, 30 Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers quit the government. “The last three years have roughly seen one resignation every fortnight,” says a senior serving officer. Secure and cushy seem to be passé. Courting risk in high pressure jobs is becoming the new mantra for many in the civil services. Fed up with poor salaries, stifled by initiative-killing processes, demoralised by frequent transfers or politicised postings, bureaucrats are increasingly exchanging their dowdy offices for glitzy corporate workplaces. “I didn’t want to get bored for another 15 years. Or hang on just for job security,” adds Kumar. Not surprisingly, headhunting firm ABC Consultants gets two or three feelers a week from mid-career bureaucrats. “Several have said they would seriously contemplate resigning if an appropriate offer comes,” says chief executive officer Shiv Agrawal. Tax officials seem more demoralised than other civil servants. “There is a feeling that only the corrupt officers can thrive,” says a 1974 batch officer who is waiting for his promotion to come through before deciding on quitting. The interest isn’t one-sided. Bureaucrats, dismissed as stodgy and obstructionist, are in demand in the private sector. ABC has several companies which ask it specifically to get a senior bureaucrat for a post. Former Cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramanian has been approached by many headhunting firms, asking him to suggest names for posts in the private sector. Companies are also willing to pay anything from three to 20 times a government salary. “It’s a coming together of demand, supply and frustration,” says Subramanian. “There is still not a full connect between what bureaucrats want and what companies want,” says Agrawal. The movement of sarkari talent to the private sector isn’t new, but it was mostly confined to post-retirement sinecures. There weren’t too many examples of serving bureaucrats shifting. That’s changing now, with several bureaucrats having switched to private sector jobs in the past year or so. Rajiv Talwar, a Union Territory cadre IAS officer, joined real estate firm DLF as group executive director in September 2006; so did Surajit Roy, a Delhi, Andamans and Nicobar Civil Service officer, but as vice-president. Five Maharashtra cadre officers — Sanjay Narayan, Pradip Karandikar, Sudha Bhave, A. Ramakrishna and Vishwas Dhumale — joined the private sector last year, as did M. Sambhasiva Rao, an Andhra Pradesh cadre officer, who joined the food and dairy products firm, Heritage. Two Gujarat cadre officers who resigned were persuaded to stay back. There are others who are waiting for their resignations to be accepted — two IAS officers from the Chhattisgarh and Andhra cadres and one Indian Economic Service officer. Department of Personnel secretary Satyanand Mishra isn’t unduly worried: “The number of people resigning is just 1 per cent of a cadre of around 6,000 people. It’s not as if there is an exodus.” Besides, more people are joining than leaving the government. A five-year recruitment plan for 2002 to 2007 set a target of 85 IAS recruits a year. Eighty-nine were taken in 2006 and 90 in 2007. Don’t look at numbers alone, says Subramanian. “It’s a great loss of talent. The private sector will take only the brightest people.” The government isn’t stopping anyone. In January this year, it reduced the cooling off period between government and private jobs from two years to one year. It is also waiving this period without too much fuss. Why are bureaucrats becoming hot property? Liaison work, goes one uncharitable explanation. Rajiv Talwar concedes that bureaucrats’ contacts are a pull factor. “We know how the system works. Some friends are there in the system but, remember, there are many one doesn’t know. The liaison system died with the licence raj.” Earlier, says Agrawal, most companies looked at bureaucrats largely for their contacts. That is reducing in importance now. It’s the project implementing skills of bureaucrats that are in demand, especially in the infrastructure and real estate sectors, notes Agrawal. “IAS officers are programmed for unstructured decision making, managing large teams of people with conflicting objectives and acting with a lot of initiative and autonomy,” says Shailesh Pathak, an IAS officer who is on deputation to the private sector Infrastructure Development Finance Company. As transport secretary in the Delhi government, Talwar had found himself reconciling city planners, environmentalists, politicians, finance department and the legal system in order to get the Delhi Metro project going. “Our ability to take an analytical approach is a huge asset,” says Rao. Adjustment isn’t always easy, though. “Initially, you miss the red light on your car, the instant access you had to important people, the pomp,” laughs Ramakrishna, who is CEO of a Mumbai-based real estate firm, Aakruti Nirman. A post in the government automatically ensures a certain amount of power, notes Anil Dhar, who quit the IRS to work with Reliance Industries in 2000. That doesn’t happen in the private sector. Ramakrishna agrees. A couple of months into his job, he found certain systems not falling into place. He took it up with his bosses, only to be told to explain to the staff what was wrong with what they were doing and why it was important to do it in a particular way. “It is important to earn your credibility through your work here,” he says. The government style of functioning may sit ill with a result-driven private sector, but it needn’t be jettisoned entirely. “The private sector is increasingly becoming aware of the importance of processes,” says Dhar. “There’s a huge change happening.” But it is the private sector’s focus on results that bureaucrats who’ve moved find so refreshing. Many of them had been chafing within a system that, says Pathak, incentivises procedures and disincentivises outcomes. “I am now focused on my job,” says Kumar, “I don’t have to worry about vigilance enquiries, politicians and other irritants. I feel free.”