On the occasion of National Civil Services Day celebration, NISCHAYA the civil services society in the University of Hyderabad had conducted a panel discussion on Changing Paradigm of Indian Bureaucracy. Shri B P Acharya, IAS (Retd.), Shri A K Goel IAS (Retd.) and Shri Rajiv Trivedi IPS (Retd.) were the panel members. Dr. Devesh Nigam, Registrar, UoH was the guest of honor for the event and had engaged the student community with his enlightening words about the history and ideology of bureaucracy.
The panel discussion which went over two and half hours from 3.00 pm to 5.30 pm was completely a fascinating academic experience, where the aspiring student community of the campus had their greatest opportunity to witness, interact and hear from the stalwarts of Indian Bureaucracy, whom had stories of more than forty years to share. Shri B P Acharya from his enriching words full of wisdom was able to make the community understand that it is not the colonial legacy or British Raj that had initiated Indian Civil Services (ICS) in the country. The roots of bureaucracy and ideology of administration can be dated back to the ages of Kautilya and his work Arthashashtra, he added.
He had pointed out that the changing needs of the society demands certain paradigm shifts in administration and bureaucracy, say, introduction of computers and artificial intelligence in administrative set up. The session continued with the words of Shri Rajiv Trivedi, who exhorted the students to develop a sense of dignity and pride to value each profession one comes across in life. He tried to remind the students that civil services are just another profession where you can reach out to different sectors of the society and be able to bring out a change in their lives, but however it’s important to acknowledge and value every other profession.
Last but not the least, it was the words of Shri A K Goel which all were eagerly waiting for. He laid his emphasis on discussing the evolving changes in bureaucracy apart from the changing paradigm. He insisted the student community to use the term socio-democratic instead of socio-political. His truly engaging and inspiring words made the audience admire the Indian federal structure where from the Gram Sabha to Lok Sabha are all part of the greatest administrative set up and it is not the six thousand civil officers who run the country. He never forgot to mention the techno-economic changes that bureaucracy had gone through the last decade and reminded the aspiring community that they were going to be leaders of ‘Amrit Kaal’ and for that we all have to be more courteous and compassionate. It was a complete package for the civil service aspirants to listen from these stalwarts of Indian Bureaucracy. Prof Nagaraju, Dean Students Welfare, and Prof. Venkata Rao, Department of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, UoH felicitated the event. The event ended with the Vote of Thanks by Mr. Abhigyan Ranjan.
Contributed by Ms. Maheshwari, IMA Economics