President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the National Conference of Chairpersons of Public Service Commissions is more than a routine exhortation on administrative efficiency. It is a timely and pointed intervention that raises a fundamental question: Is it time for major reforms in the way India selects its civil servants? The answer, increasingly, appears to be yes. Much of the contemporary discourse around civil services reform revolves around technology-digital governance, artificial intelligence, data-driven decision-making and continuous skill upgradation. While these are undoubtedly important, President Murmu’s emphasis stands out for a different reason. She placed integrity, honesty and ethical orientation at the very core of recruitment, arguing that, while skill gaps can be bridged through training, a lack of integrity is often impossible to remedy. In doing so, she touched upon what may be the most serious and least addressed challenge facing India’s administrative machinery.
India today is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, managing lakhs of crores of rupees in public expenditure each year. Civil servants occupy pivotal positions in policy formulation, implementation and regulation. Yet, the number of corruption cases involving serving and retired officials, coupled with a growing pile of pending departmental enquiries and requests for prosecution sanctions, presents a troubling picture. Even allowing for the difficulty of investigating and prosecuting senior officials, the sheer volume of such cases raises questions about the robustness of existing recruitment and screening mechanisms.
President Murmu’s suggestion that PSCs should devise instruments and tools-possibly using technology-to gauge the ethical orientation of candidates is therefore significant. It challenges the long-held assumption that merit can be adequately measured solely through written examinations and interviews. These methods may test memory, analytical ability and expression, but they are limited in their ability to assess values such as honesty, empathy, public spirit and moral courage. In a country as vast and diverse as India-marked by deep inequalities of income, language, region and culture-the ability of a civil servant to understand people’s problems and act with fairness is as important as technical competence.
This is where reform becomes imperative. The prevailing system, heavily dependent on competitive examinations and a booming coaching industry, has increasingly rewarded rote learning and exam-specific strategies. Talented candidates from underprivileged backgrounds-particularly those lacking access to expensive coaching centres-often find themselves at a disadvantage. This not only undermines the constitutional promise of equality of opportunity but also deprives the state of officers who may have a deep grassroots understanding and a genuine commitment to public service.
If PSCs are to become true agents of equality and equity, as President Murmu envisaged, they must rethink both what they test and how they test it. Greater weight could be given to situational judgement tests, ethical dilemma-based assessments, psychological evaluations, and long-term behavioural indicators. Technology, rather than being confined to online examinations or administrative efficiency, can be harnessed to design more nuanced evaluation tools that assess integrity, sensitivity and decision-making under pressure. Retired civil servants of proven integrity and professional repute can play a vital role in reshaping recruitment processes. Having spent decades within the system, they understand its strengths, vulnerabilities and informal incentives. Their involvement-as advisors, evaluators or members of reform committees-could help PSCs design mechanisms that are both realistic and resistant to manipulation.
At the same time, reforms must be aligned with India’s future challenges. Climate change, rapid urbanisation, technological disruption and social tensions demand a class of officers who are adaptable, ethical and globally comparable. The world is moving fast, and governance models are evolving just as rapidly. India cannot afford an administrative system that is slow to change or overly reliant on outdated selection paradigms. Ultimately, the core quality sought should be the acumen and commitment to serve people; technical skills and procedural knowledge can follow. The President has shown the direction with clarity and moral authority. Her emphasis on integrity, transparency and ethical orientation strikes at the heart of governance reform. The responsibility now lies with the PSC to translate this vision into concrete action. Changes are long overdue, as India requires building future-ready civil servants with no compromise on integrity.
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