Lower court revamp, single course for services placed for PM’s nod

New Delhi: A blueprint for Modi 2.0 government’s next five years is being drawn up by 10 sectoral group of secretaries and over a dozen meetings down, numerous ideas are on table for the Prime mInister’s consideration.
On the agenda are ambitious plans for modernisation of the entire lower court apparatus, a single foundation course for All India Services at Mussorie for inter service camaraderie, mandatory central deputation for all IAS officers, digitalisation of state assemblies, 100 plus new passport Kendras and a national volunteerism drive to seek out willing individuals to help the needy in various possible ways.

While over 12 meetings of the Sectoral Group of Secretaries have been conducted so far with the Cabinet Secretary reviewing them on near daily basis, it is expected that PM Modi will step in from this week for stocktaking and finalising the five years plans for each ministry.



The 5 year proposals ET has gathered that the Department of Personnel & Training has proposed that a central deputation be made mandatory for all IAS officers after a certain years of service.

The Centre is currently faced with a huge shortfall of IAS officers who are showing a greater preference for stints at the state instead. A single national testing/recruitnment agency is also proposed for recruitment to all Group C and D services.

The DoPT has further proposed a consolidated 15 week Foundation Course for all services from 2020 at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration in Mussorie instead of just catering to IAS officers.

The aim is to ensure greater inter service camaraderie and plans are afoot to get started next month on with a 3-4 week module at Mussorie for all 800 plus successful UPSC candidates of 2019.

PM Modi is expected to address all of them together this year to send out the message of equality of all the services loud and clear and this will be further underlined with a five day schedule for them at the Statue of Unity in Gujarat.

The Prime Minister, in fact, is learnt to have expressed that the 2019 "Prime Ministers Awards for Excellence in Public Administration" - given annually to officers of the Central and State Governments for exceptional work- should be conferred this year on October 31- the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel and at the Statue of Unity complex instead of New Delhi.

The awards are given annually on April 21-the Civil Services Day commemorating Sardar Patel’s address to the first batch of civil servants in Independent India where he referred to civil servants as the 'steel frame of India’.

However, the awards could not be given on April 21this year due to the model code of conduct being in effect at that time and was put off for after elections.

The PMO is learnt to have now conveyed that the awards should instead be given on ‘Ekta Diwas’- as October 31has now been christened.

While DoPT is looking closely at the services rule books, the Law ministry has proposed steps to cut down the huge backlog of litigation across the country. An ambitious plan to modernise lower courts is proposed besides a network of telelawyers to provide cheaper legal assistance down to the village level.