History of Civil Services

These Were formerly known as Imperial Civil Service (ICS), was founded in 1858 under British rule with assistance of Federal Public Service Commission. Warren Hastings laid the foundation of civil service and Charles Cornwallis reformed, modernised and rationalised it. Hence, Charles Cornwallis is known as the 'Father of Civil Service in India' (earlier called as Imperial service of India).

The Federal Public Service Commission became the Union Public Service Commission after independence. It was given a constitutional status with under of Constitution of India on 26 January 1950.

In India's parliamentary democracy, the ultimate responsibility for running the administration rests with the people's elected representatives—cabinet ministers. But a handful of ministers cannot be expected to deal personally with the manifold problems of modern administration. Thus the ministers lay down the policy and it is for the civil servants, who serve at the pleasure of the President of India, to carry it out. However, Article 311 of the constitution protects them from politically motivated or vindictive action. Civil servants are employees of the Government of India or of the states, but not all employees of the Government are civil servants. As of 2010, there were 6.4 million government employees in India but fewer than 50,000 civil servants to administer them. Civil servants in a personal capacity are paid from the Civil List. Senior civil servants may be called to account by Parliament. The civil service system in India is rank-based and does not follow the tenets of the position-based civil services.

Today's civil services carries historical legacy of former Indian Civil Service of British India. Warren Hastings laid the foundation of civil service and Charles Cornwallis reformed, modernised, and rationalised it. Hence, Charles Cornwallis is known as 'the father of civil service in India'.

Cornwallis introduced two divisions of the Indian Civil service—covenanted and uncovenanted. The covenanted civil service consisted of only Europeans occupying the higher posts in the government. The uncovenanted civil service was solely introduced to facilitate the entry of Indians at the lower rung of the administration.

With the passing of the Government of India Act 1919, the Imperial Services headed by the Secretary of State for India were split into two—the All India Services and the Central Services.

The foundation of modern civil service was laid after the partition of India in 1947, to fulfill Sardar Patel's vision that the civil service should strengthen cohesion and national unity. The values of integrity, impartiality, and merit remain the guiding principles of the Indian civil services.

Article 312  of the Indian Constitution gives authority to the Rajya Sabha to set up new branches of the All India Services with a two-thirds majority vote. The Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, and Indian Forest Service have been established under this constitutional provision.

Civil Services in India gains importance becuase of:

• Service presence throughout the country and its strong binding character.
• Non-partisan advice to political leadership in the midst of political instability and uncertainties.
• Effective policy-making and regulation.
• Effective coordination between institutions of governance.
• Leadership at different levels of administration.
• Service delivery at the cutting edge level.
• Provide "continuity and change" to the administration.

Responsibilities of Civil Servants to Government and Society:

• The prime responsibility of civil services executives to society is to serve the government it has elected. It denotes that civil services must offer same standard of free, frank, impartial and responsive advice, and the same level of professionalism in administration and delivery of services, policies, programs irrespective of political party in power.
• Another accountability of civil services executive is to openly involve in all actions within the framework of ministerial actions to government and legislature.
• Specifically, civil servants are responsible for public interest in maintaining the law and ensuring that proper procedures are followed.
• Civil servants has close relations with society as they serve array of services. It entails that they must adopt ethical practices to deal with public.
• Civil servants need to serve the society by ensuring that entitlement and services provided to it under law and government policies are delivered effectively, impartially, courteously and professionally.
• Civil services officers also responsive to the need of people, treating its member with courtesy and with sensitivity to their rights and aspirations.