New Delhi
31 July 2009
The Ministry of External Affairs is working towards doubling its personnel
strength over the next five years, in a phased manner. This will include more than just
increasing the size of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).
The Government is understood to have agreed to increase the Ministry's personnel
strength (IFS and non-IFS included) intake by 600, one-fifth of which number would be
added each year over the next five years.
Already about 131 officials have been absorbed into the Ministry since the Union Cabinet
decided last year on a five-year programme to expand the size of the personnel strength
of the Ministry.
The personnel strength of the Ministry has gone down from 4,866 to 4,746, of which the
size of the officers belonging to the IFS is less than 700. In comparison, for every Indian
diplomat, there are four Brazilian diplomats and seven Chinese diplomats.
The Ministry is also seeking a balance between internal skill generation, and
outsourcing. This would mean looking at how it can organise its work differently by using
the capacities that exist outside in society.
For instance, the Protocol Division does what the hospitality industry in India now can
do. Outsourcing the protocol work would allow the Ministry to concentrate on its primary
functions.
In other measures, mid-career training is now mandatory for an officer to be promoted to
Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary ranks.
Manpower will be augmented through selective and need-based induction of specialist
officers from other ministries and departments into MEA. For example, the Boundary Cell
of the Ministry has officers from outside the Ministry.
In the last year and more, the Ministry of Finance has sanctioned 220 more posts for
consular and visa wings of the Indian Missions abroad, especially in the Gulf where a
large population of Indians live and work.
Minister of External Affairs SM Krishna on Friday shared some of the Ministry's
proposals with members of parliament. In a statement in the Rajya Sabha on "Working of
the Ministry of External Affairs", he said there was a need for the Ministry to respond
with the spirit of creativity and innovation to the requirements and challenges imposed
by a rapidly changing world situation.
"We remain ever sensitive to the need for constantly reviewing the enhancing the human
resource strengths of the Ministry, providing the requisite budgetary enhancement and
giving importance to the initial training and mid-career training of our diplomats and
officials," Mr Krishna said.
The minister also said that the needs of commercial diplomacy and the projection of
India's soft power and civilisational values were receiving particular attention, adding
that the need for constantly infusing the working of foreign policy with new ideas and
concepts was also fully recognised.
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