New Delhi: At a time when the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) representation at the Joint Secretary level in the Central Government is an all -time low, 25 officers of the service have been appointed to the post of 41 appointments made by the government on Wednesday.
While the number is still low, the IAS officers had one-one-authority on the post till a few years ago, serving officials told ThePrint that in the last few months, more IAS officers have been attempted to reduce more IAS officers, so that the central posting’s “go” to “go”.
In October last year, ThePrint reported that the percentage of IAS officers appointed as Joint Secretary in the Government of India had fallen to only 33 percent-which has been considered the most prestigious for the country’s civil services for decades.
With more than 60 percent of the appointments for IAS officers, officials said the step is the result of some recurrence in the central posting point of view.
A senior IAS official serving at the center said, “There was a feeling among the IAS community that it would not be good for both the country and service if the IAS officers stop coming to the center completely,” said a senior IAS officer serving at the center. “So, a large number of IAS officers were incorporated, and later, a large number of numbers have been appointed.”
“Still, the numbers are not too much that they used to do, but at least one are uptic,” the official said.
Among the 25 IAS officers appointed, four from Gujarat, three from Bihar, two from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, Punjab, Assam-Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura, Tripura, Tripura, Tripura, Tripura are each of each.
According to the tendency of some West Bengal officials, no cadre officer has been appointed on deputation.
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‘A repetition’
According to IAS officials, an attempt has been made to reduce the “monopoly” of IAS officers in the central posting under the current government, especially at a high level.
This, some say, is a way to increase the centralization of power since affiliated services such as railways and revenue, only report to the center, and thus, not “divided loyalty”.
However, IAS officers have also been a tendency that they are not selecting themselves for central deputation.
“This is a completely different scenario from our time,” said former IAS officer TR Raghunandan. “In our time, there was a strict competition to come to the center, and was considered a matter of pride to appoint it as Joint Secretary,” he said.
“It was also a time when the Joint Secretary was the most important person in a ministry after the minister,” he said.
He said, “The secretary remained in the post for 1-2 years, Additional Secretaries were not seen anything along with the secretaries … Therefore, the real policy-making was done by the joint secretaries, who would spend for five years in the same situation,” he said.
“Now, things are different … The attraction of coming to the center is reduced. People seem very happy to live in their states, where allowances are much higher than the center.”
However, another former IAS officer KBS Sidhu said that recent appointments have clearly made clear that there has been some recurrence by the government.
“It seems to me that after trying the officials of all other services, the government has felt that no one matches the area and multi-comprehensive experience of IAS officers,” he said. “This is not a question of intelligence, but the experience of an IAS officer who will be eligible to become JS after 16 years of service, will be far more diverse and grassroots than an officer, compared to an officer of revenue, telecommunications, etc.”. ,
“If the government has gone from 33 percent to 60 percent of IAS officers in the new era of appointments, it is clear that some have been reconsidered.”
However, a serving railway officer, who wanted to be anonymous, said that appointments are the result of “backlash” from IAS lobby.
“We saw it coming. If you see the harmony made in the last few months, the IAS officers are everywhere … The problem is how much you increase the diversity, until they hold the major positions in PMO, dopt, etc., they cannot be displaced.”
However, it is not a question of which service has been appointed as Joint Secretary, Raghunandan said. He said, “Being JS is very rich, difficult and demand. If you do it well, you can do a lot for the country. If IAS officer stops becoming Joint Secretary, it is actually a disadvantage to service,” he said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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