The bureaucratic landscape of India has undergone a subtle but profound transformation over the past decade. When the Narendra Modi government assumed office in 2014, it inherited not just policy paralysis and administrative fatigue, but a bureaucracy deeply insulated by tenure-based security and informal privilege networks. Over the years, the government has pursued a systematic effort to reshape this machinery, emphasizing accountability, performance, and integrity over entitlement, hierarchy, and inertia.
The most visible outcome of this shift has been the wave of voluntary retirements across the higher bureaucracy, particularly within the Indian Revenue Service (IRS). Between 2014 and 2024, as per government data, 853 senior IRS officers opted for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) – 383 from the Income-Tax cadre and 470 from the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre. The year-wise data reveals a steady rise: in the Income-Tax cadre, voluntary exits climbed from 20 in 2014 to around 57 in 2024; in the Customs & Indirect Taxes cadre, from 24 to about 73 in the same period
While some interpret these departures as personal or career-driven choices, the pattern aligns closely with a deeper structural realignment within the system. The introduction of the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) in 2025, which allows central government employees to seek VRS after 20 years of service but grants full pension only after 25, has further incentivized performance-linked continuation rather than complacent tenure. Those who exit early now receive pro rata pension benefits, reinforcing the principle that privileges are earned through sustained contributions, not guaranteed by position.
Beneath these administrative signals lies a more fundamental recalibration: a governance philosophy in which bureaucratic renewal is treated as a prerequisite for institutional integrity. The government’s stance is clear: officers unwilling to align with the new culture of transparency and delivery are free to make way for those who will.
The push for reform was not abstract. It arose from an accumulated crisis of credibility within the bureaucracy’s enforcement arms. Over the past few years, multiple high-profile corruption cases involving senior and mid-level IRS officers have underscored the urgency of administrative cleansing. In one case, Amit Kumar Singhal, a 2007-batch IRS officer serving as Additional Director General in the Directorate of Taxpayer Services, Delhi, was arrested for allegedly demanding a ₹45 lakh bribe, with CBI raids recovering 3 kg of gold, 2 kg of silver, and ₹1 crore in cash.
Similarly, Jeevan Lal Lavidiya, then Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions), Hyderabad, was booked for large-scale bribery and benami property transactions, thereby exposing deep-rooted corruption networks.
Most recently, Aditya Saurabh, a 2021-batch IRS officer in Patna, was arrested in July 2025 for accepting a ₹2 lakh bribe in exchange for releasing seized funds.
The significance of these cases lies not just in their criminality but in their diversity: from a 2007-batch senior to a 2021-batch recruit, the pattern shows that corruption is not generational; it is systemic. The government’s enforcement response, however, reflects a shift in institutional posture: swift action, public transparency, and no tolerance for administrative immunity.
Parallel to this clean-up drive, the government has also worked to professionalize and modernize the bureaucracy, combining deterrence with capacity building. The introduction of the 360-degree appraisal system in 2015 marked a decisive move away from the traditional Annual Confidential Report model that often rewarded loyalty over merit.6 The new framework draws inputs from superiors, peers, subordinates, and even external stakeholders, ensuring a more rounded and credible evaluation of an officer’s performance and conduct. It also aligns bureaucratic advancement with the government’s larger governance objectives – outcomes, citizen interface, and integrity.
At the institutional level, the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) has emerged as the flagship platform for upskilling India’s administrative cadre. Under the Modi government, the NCGG has expanded its mandate beyond India’s borders, hosting civil servants from dozens of countries to share governance models and best practices. In 2024 alone, the Centre conducted 29 specialized programs that trained 958 civil servants from 45 countries, reinforcing India’s position as a hub of governance innovation and public administration reform.7
The two pillars, enforcement and capacity building, thus complement each other. The government’s approach goes beyond punitive action against corruption; it aims to replace the culture of discretion with one of delivery. The exit of hundreds of officers through VRS must therefore be read not as institutional attrition but as a managed transition toward a leaner, more accountable bureaucracy.
For decades, India’s administrative ethos was shaped by what might be called “postcolonial permanence”, the belief that bureaucrats, once appointed, formed an untouchable class whose authority was largely unquestionable. The Modi government has deliberately dismantled this culture by institutionalizing mechanisms that link career progression to ethical conduct, performance, and public service outcomes.
In policy terms, this transformation represents the normalization of accountability. Episodic purges do not drive it, but by structural reform – rules, incentives, and institutional feedback loops that gradually redefine what it means to serve in government. The phrase “bureaucratic clean-up” thus understates the scale of change underway. It is, in essence, a strategic governance reset designed to ensure that India’s administrative machinery operates in sync with the demands of a fast-growing, technology-driven, citizen-focused democracy.
The message from the highest levels of government is unmistakable: the era of bureaucratic entitlement is over. Integrity and performance are the new credentials for administrative legitimacy. Those who thrived in a system of opacity and patronage now find the ground shifting beneath them, replaced by an ethos where accountability is institutional, not personal.
In the long arc of India’s administrative history, the post-2014 decade may well be remembered as the period when the bureaucracy ceased to be an insulated elite and began its transition toward becoming a responsible, responsive arm of a reforming state.
Author: Mrunmayee Mandar Paralikar (Tweets at @MrunmayeeParal1)
