'They don’t know what a Collector actually does': Ex-Finance Secretary Subhash Garg on IAS expectations vs reality

Former Finance Secretary of India Subhash Garg has spoken candidly about the gap between expectations and ground realities in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), saying that many officers enter the service without fully understanding the nature of the work involved.

Speaking on a podcast with entrepreneur Raj Shamani, Garg said most aspirants carry only a superficial understanding of the service. “They think they will become an SDM, then a Collector, and then a big officer. That’s about it,” he said, adding that many do not really know “what a Collector actually does or what the real responsibilities of an IAS officer are.”

Garg noted that officers largely learn their roles after joining the service, whether at the district level or later in the Secretariat. “When responsibilities start coming, you first spend time discovering what your work actually is,” he said. According to him, disappointment arises when officers cling to rigid expectations instead of focusing on public interest and execution. “If you understand what the work is and where public interest lies, challenges will come, but disappointment doesn’t,” he said.

Recalling his early posting as a Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Garg cited land allotment under ceiling laws as a classic example of the clash between idealism and reality. “On paper, it is a very good public-interest policy,” he said, referring to the allotment of surplus government land to poor farmers. “But when you reach the ground, you see that large farmers have already occupied much of this land.”

He explained that allotting such land to small farmers often resulted in prolonged legal battles. “Instead of benefiting, the small farmer ends up running from court to court,” Garg said. To address this, he said he adopted an unconventional approach—clearing encroachments where possible and, in other cases, allowing large farmers to retain disputed strips of land after contributing money to village panchayats for public use.

“My solution was not fully within the rules,” Garg admitted, but said it helped reduce disputes and prevented further harm to vulnerable farmers. He argued that rigid idealism can sometimes worsen outcomes. “If you cannot translate idealism into reality, then you should not insist on it,” he said. “But if you can implement it, you must do so—I have done that many times, even by going beyond the rules.”

Reflecting on his tenure as a district collector, Garg said he witnessed several cases where farmers who were allotted land lost both income and access to justice due to litigation. “At that point, I decided that if a farmer is being harassed, then I am both the judge and his lawyer,” he said.