Abstract
Bangladesh Civil Service has, over the years, undergone substantial structural and functional changes. One change has been to minimize cadre differences and elitism—a characteristic introduced during the British colonial period and later during the Pakistani rule. With the abolition of elitism from the civil service, it has turned the civil service into mediocrity marred by rigidity, inefficiency and being slow. The norms and standards of the civil service have greatly been eroded over the years due to factionalism and politicization of the civil service. It led to the negative consequences on their professional neutrality and competence with a gradual decline in citizens’ trust. This chapter highlights composition, recruitment, career development, compensation and retirement benefits, ethics, and code of conduct of the civil service. With the imperative for pursuing modernization of the civil service and rationalization for further efficiency and merit, this chapter examines the challenges and to what extent modernization of the civil service has taken place in Bangladesh.
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Notes
- 1.
A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an aristocrat. The term means ‘land owner’ in Persian. Typically hereditary, zamindarsheld enormous tracts of land and controlled the peasants who lived there, from whom they reserved the right to collect tax.
- 2.
The system under which zamindars held land.
- 3.
Being an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) means an officer may be removed from a posting and kept on hold without any assignment. The OSD period may be as long as five to eight years maximum for some officers. Breaking the status of OSD could be hard, as it may be seen mostly as a punishment, while short-term OSD may be meant for higher education abroad, which may require being absent from work for more than three months. However, an OSD officer may enjoy all facilities as per entitlement.
- 4.
Lien is the provision that gives job security in a cadre when an official works elsewhere in enterprises or agencies. A certain percentage of lien is permissible by the government. The length of period the person is absent from his or her post is usually two to three years. A lien is provided subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions.
- 5.
Tadbir has acquired a negative connotation in the administrative parlance in Bangladesh. Tadbir is often viewed as a particularistic kind of lobbying made between individuals to influence decisions. It is informal and persists in a hierarchic unequal social structure. It manifests symptoms of neo-patrimonialism.
- 6.
The Awami League is the present ruling party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is the main opposition political party.
- 7.
A caretaker government is an interim government established during a transition period, to conduct elections and hand over power. Such constitutional provisions have been repealed.
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Haque, S.T.M., Mahfuzul Haque, M. (2019). The Civil Service System of Bangladesh. In: Jamil, I., Dhakal, T., Paudel, N. (eds) Civil Service Management and Administrative Systems in South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90191-6_3
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