Mumbai, Oct 12, 2026. Tata Administrative Services (TAS), the Tata group’s general-management programme for grooming future leaders, has lost much of its influence within the conglomerate, according to a report by The Ken. The report is based on the publication’s summary and opening section, as the full article is paywalled.
Modelled on the Indian Administrative Services, TAS was set up to build leaders from within the group. It counts Tata Sons’ Harish Bhat and Titan’s Ajoy Chawla among its alumni. The report says it has since been reduced to one of several routes into the group.
The timing is awkward. The programme’s 70th anniversary coincides with a chairmanship dispute at Tata Sons that has exposed weaknesses in succession planning. N Chandrasekaran was reappointed chairman in September, with Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata the only dissenter. Tata Trusts, which holds 66% of Tata Sons, has since called the reappointment unlawful, leaving the group’s top leadership at a stalemate.
The Ken says TAS has struggled to keep up as the group expanded into semiconductors, electronics, EVs and e-commerce, areas that demand specialist expertise. Officers say group companies are not always responsive. One said that when he explored openings at Air India earlier this year, the airline’s HR ignored TAS’s enquiries.
Officers also cite slow decision-making. A former Titan officer said that when he tried to list Fastrack on Flipkart in the early 2010s, senior leaders dismissed e-commerce as a fad. By the time the roughly 20 required sign-offs came through, he said, rivals such as Casio and Fossil had dominated sales for a year.
The report says the weaker group standing hurts officers’ careers outside Tata as well. A 2021-batch officer said he lost a Walmart role to an Amazon candidate, since recruiters prefer market leaders to Tata Cliq or Bigbasket.
The Ken says the perks of the programme, including higher pay, mobility across group companies and no function-based restrictions, are the very things companies struggle to accommodate. Without Ratan Tata’s backing, it adds, many TAS officers can no longer wield the influence their predecessors did. It concludes that the programme needs a revamp to restore the prestige it once had.