For over a dozen years, there has been a clear recognition in the government that the ministry of external affairs needs to reorient itself to the needs of a changing world, in which economic and commercial diplomacy play at least as significant a part as the traditional domain of political and security affairs. The economic diplomacy division was thus added as a new beat in the MEA.
It is probable that this department needs reinforcing with more officers with appropriate specialisation, and a more refined remit. As the MEA as a whole suffers from a shortage of officers, with fewer men and women who clear the civil services examination opting for the foreign service (whose glamour quotient is waning), perhaps some incentives may be necessary to attract the right talent pool. But to say that India needs a new foreign service for the commerce ministry is to misjudge the role of Indian missions abroad, which are headed by ambassadors.
It appears files have moved at the highest levels in government to bring the new service into being. This seems like a distinctly poor idea, which may be animated more by turf wars than the imagination to advance Indian interests overseas. The ambassador is the nodal point for the projection of Indian capabilities abroad and leveraging these in a realm traditionally called foreign affairs, which comprehends just about everything. A dilution of this principle and the creation of a competing bureaucracy will make for waste, inefficiency and undercutting of negotiating space.