Walk The Talk With Bureaucrat Anil Swarup

About to retire after 37 years long tenure as a civil servant, Anil Swarup - currently serving as the Secretary in the Union Human Resource Development Ministry - has an exceptional track record across Ministries. Speaking to Shekhar Gupta on Walk the Talk, he touches upon his experience in different sectors, the art of managing people and the problems that plague our education system. As the coal secretary, Mr Swarup was instrumental in revamping the coal block auction process by ensuring transparency through e-auction and addressing the problems due to shortage of coal. During his time at the education ministry, he has been involved in bringing reforms and taking on the mafias in the education sector. As someone who considers teachers to be the pivot of education, he highlights the problems in the way teachers are trained, recruited and the prevalence of colleges that provide degrees for money. He also sees merit in opening up the sector to public-private partnership. Even though Mr Swarup compliments the UPSC as an institution to be proud of, he stresses on the need to bring about changes in the selection process so as to effectively select leaders and train them.