What is Lateral Entry: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday accused the Congress of making misleading claims on the government’s initiative of ‘lateral entry’ in senior bureaucracy, saying the move will not affect SC/ST recruitment in All India Services. Vaishnaw said ‘lateral entry’ in bureaucracy has been taking place since the 1970s during Congress-led governments.
He cited former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia as prominent examples of such initiatives taken in the past. The minister argued that the 45 posts proposed for ‘lateral entry’ in the administrative services amount to 0.5 per cent of the cadre strength of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), which comprises over 4,500 officers, and would not cut down the ranks of any service.
The tenure of lateral entry bureaucrats is three years with a possible extension of two years. Vaishnav said Manmohan Singh entered the lateral entry in 1971 as an economic adviser in the then Ministry of Foreign Trade and rose to become the Finance Minister and later the Prime Minister.
Others who joined the government through this route include Sam Pitroda and V Krishnamurthy, economists Bimal Jalan, Kaushik Basu, Arvind Virmani, Raghuram Rajan and Ahluwalia, he said. Jalan was the chief economic adviser to the government and later the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Virmani and Basu were also appointed as chief economic advisers in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
Rajan also served as chief economic adviser and later as governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016. Ahluwalia was brought into government roles from academia and international organisations. He served as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission from 2004 to 2014. Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani was appointed head of the Unique Identification Authority of India in 2009, Vaishnav said.