z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-08.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 583
IN SUB-COMMITTEE NO. VIII 583
a corollary of the other. The control goes with the recruiting authority. Will you, therefore, add to Item (6), in order to meet Dr. Ambedkar’s point, “and is so, whether any definite recommendations should be made for the guidance of such Committees” ?
† Chairman: We come now to Item (3) : “Should recruitment on an All-India basis continue for any of the following Services : ( a ) Indian Civil Service, ( b ) Indian Police Service, ( c ) Indian Forest Service, ( d ) Irrigation Branch of the Indian Service of Engineers.” I pause here, and suggest that I rather gather the sense of the Committee to be “Yes” to ( a ), “Yes” to ( b ) . and “No” to ( c ). May I take it that the answer is “Yes” to ( a ) and ( b ) ?
Mr. Shiva Rao: I think that all these Services should be provincialised. I do not think it would be satisfactory to work these Services on an AllIndia basis, and at the same time ensure a proper relationship between the Services and the Ministry.
Mr. Basu: The Indian Civil Service is a general service that is recruited, and there are bifurcations and trifurcations. After a period in the general service, some members, for example, go to Customs, some take the Judicial line and become Judges, and others remain in the Executive and Revenue Departments. Are we going to have a service which is not a specialised service, such as we ought to have from the very start ? It may be, as I pointed out in my general remarks, that with the new Constitution it will be necessary to recast the categories of services, instead of having one service, namely, the I.C.S. The I.C.S. has done good work in the past, but it is to some extent an anachronism, and may be more so within a short time. The question is whether by this kind of nomenclature we shall be tending to continue and perpetuate a state of things which does not fit in with the requirements of the present day.
Dr. Ambedkar: This question has to be considered from more than one point of view. There is, first of all, the point of view of Provincial autonomy. We are framing a Constitution in which we propose to give as large a degree of Provincial autonomy to the provinces as possible, and it seems to me that no province can be deemed to have Provincial autonomy if it has not the right to regulate the Civil Service that is going to work in its area. There is another and very important point of view, namely, finance. When we have an All-India Civil Service we have a fixed scale of pay. Salaries, remunerations, and other privileges are on a scale which is somewhat remote from what would be obtainable in the various provinces. A Civil Service that will not be costly to Bombay or Bengal may be costly to smaller and poorer provinces, like Assam, Sind, the North-West Frontier Province, and Punjab, and it may be that these provinces will feel themselves satisfied with a little less efficient service than the All-India basis would give them. Having regard to finance at their command, they may regard the brains and efficiency obtainable as quite sufficient for their purpose. Finally, I agree with Mr. Basu
†Proceedings of Sub-Committee No. VIII (Services), pp. 54-58.