 A New Approach to Public Sector Hiring in India for Improved Service DeliveryIndia Policy Forum, 2016, vol. 12, issue 1, 187-236 Abstract: This paper argues that the current structure of the public-sector labor markets in India severely limits the ability of the Indian state to effectively deliver services across a wide variety of core functions including policing, education, health care, and public health. Sources of inefficiency include: too few front-line employees, caused in part by entry-level salaries that are too high; lifetime jobs offered without assessing candidate fit for the position; ineffective training and skilling; inadequate rewards for performance; and spatial mismatch between population needs and employees’ preferred work locations. I propose a new approach to hiring front-line service providers to address these issues. The key idea is to introduce three- to five-year-apprenticeships for entry-level service providers, giving priority to local candidates, and interspersing modular training and certification of skills that are consistent with the new National Skills Framework. Hiring into regular full-time positions will be unchanged for the most part, but (performance-linked) credit will be provided for each successful year as an apprentice. One-time exit payments will be made to apprentices who do not get selected for regular positions. I illustrate this approach with several examples, and argue that such an approach can improve the quantity and quality of front-line service providers, in a fiscally feasible way. Additional benefits include reducing youth unemployment, improving their skills, and increasing female labor force participation and empowerment. Since most front-line service delivery responsibilities are under the jurisdiction of state governments, I conclude by noting that the increased fiscal devolution to states under the Fourteenth Finance Commission constitutes an especially promising opportunity for a few states to try out this approach. Keywords: Public Sector Labor Markets; Public Expenditure; Public Goods; Service Delivery; Misallocation; Hiring; Training; Personnel Economics; India (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nca:ncaerj:v:12:y:2016:i:2016-1:p:187-236 Access Statistics for this article India Policy Forum is currently edited by B Ramesh More articles in India Policy Forum from National Council of Applied Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC. |
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