A long-term, full-time engagement is usually considered the hallmark of loyalty and commitment. By extension, a short-term employee is seen as someone less committed. This assumption seems to guide GoI’s decision to limit the access of short-term and temporary personnel to sensitive information. The corollary of this would mean governments needing to focus on attracting skilled and qualified persons to join the ranks, rather than employing more and more consultants, locums and part-timers. Many states are hiring ‘temporary’ police personnel to deal with law and order, Maharashtra being the most recent example. True, there are salary considerations. But the police institutionally maintain maximum public engagement among the services. Temporary inductees are unlikely to be as committed to doing their jobs with professional sensitivity as much as they are to simply drawing a salary.
Bureaucracies are regulated by rules and standards, and defined by hierarchical order. If the government considers some members to be ‘less trustworthy’ by virtue of the manner of their engagement, then it is incumbent on the same government to rectify the situation. After all, for the public at large, for all practical purposes, temporary or permanent, any person representing the state is exactly that: a representative, not a hired hand.
