Every year on April 21, India celebrates and observes National Civil Services Day. The day is celebrated to mark the efforts of the civil servants working tirelessly and relentlessly in different departments and organisations in order to ensure that the administrative machinery works smoothly. Civil servants are responsible for policymaking and ensuring that those policies are implemented, thereby playing an important role in the development of the nation.
National Civil Services Day is also celebrated to remind the civil servants across organisations and departments, who work at different levels, that nothing is above the service of the nation and its citizens.
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The first National Civil Services Day was observed in 2006 and the ceremony was held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. The government of India evaluates the work of individuals and organisations and lauds their effort by presenting awards. The Prime Minister’s Excellence Award in Public Administration is also presented to the civil servants to honour their remarkable contribution and service to the nation.
The Government of India chose April 21 as the day to celebrate and commemorate National Civil Services Day because on April 21 in 1947, India’s first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel addressed the newly appointed and formed Administrative Service Officers. Sardar Patel’s historic address was conducted at the Metcalf House in New Delhi, wherein he referred to the civil servants as the “steel frame of India”.
‘Father of Indian Civil Service’
Charles Cornwallis is known as the father of the Indian Civil Service because of his contribution to reforming and modernising the civil services in India. The foundation of civil services in India was laid by Warren Hastings, but it was Cornwallis who took on the responsibility of bringing a reform.
Cornwallis also introduced two divisions of the Indian Civil Service, namely, covenanted and uncovenanted. While the covenanted division of civil service only included Europeans and those occupying the higher ranks, the uncovenanted division was to allow Indians, civil servants, at the lower level of administration.
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