OSD culture

Appointment as an OSD was always a stopgap arrangement in the past which the officials usually got in between two assignments or after a long absence from service owing to leave, foreign training etc. Of course, officials facing charges of corruption and breach of service discipline were also made OSDs. Finally and vaguely, unavoidable reasons also accounted for the officers remaining without any job for a period usually not exceeding a few months. But there have been government officials acting as OSDs year after year!

In most cases, the officials are not facing any specific charge or investigation against them. So successive governments apparently applied the rule of administrative expediency while placing the officers on special duty. Allegations are there that officers holding political views not looked kindly on by the government of the day were made into OSDs. It is precisely here that the OSD issue unfolds a dimension antithetical to the basic spirit of permanent bureaucracy. The government will come and go but the bureaucrats who serve the state, not any particular government, have to stay and remain active unless they have been found guilty of grave omissions and commissions.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

If any segment of officials is put in a limbo on 'political consideration' it amounts to politicisation of the bureaucracy. It could also have a demoralising effect on the officialdom, apart from being a pointless loss of the service that they could render to the state.

We believe the OSD culture should not be extended beyond the limits set by service rules; for, only a bureaucracy free from political influence can function with objectivity and neutrality.