'Tap management schools for IAS officers': Narayana Murthy to PM Modi

Narayan Murthy said managers can get speed, imagination and excellence in decision-making, and also in implementation in the public governance system.

Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi can consider hiring civil servants from management schools.

The cofounder and retired chairman of Infosys, NR Narayana Murthy.(AFP file photo)

"Maybe Prime Minister Modi, who has done a brilliant job so far in terms of accelerating our economy, may want to look at whether we need more managers in the government rather than administrators," Narayan Murthy said at a media event.

The government needs to tap management schools for the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) talent rather than the present system where the candidates appear for the highly competitive exam conducted by the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) by giving an examination in three or four subjects, Murthy added.

He said selected candidates should be taken to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy Of Administration in Mussoorie for training, where they can be trained in specialized sectors such as agriculture, defence or manufacturing. He said it would be a departure from the current practice of creating general administrators.

He said such candidates would then become subject matter experts and serve the country for several decades.

Narayan Murthy further said the current system of hiring is part of the administrative approach which has roots in 1958 when the East India Company transferred the dominion to the British crown.

He said the objective of the civil servants then was to go slow and delay implementation because the native population was to be kept under control.

"I hope India becomes a nation that is more management-orientated than just administration-orientated," he added.

The managers can get speed, imagination and excellence in decision-making, and also in implementation in the public governance system, he added.

Making an oblique reference to the setback faced by the government with the recent attempts at codifying lateral entry, Murthy said he hopes the Opposition will not have "many objections" to such a shift as they recently did.

With inputs from PTI