A January 12 letter from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) to the states has the latter up in umbrage. The letter called for responses by January 25 to a proposal for changes in sharing of bureaucrats from the All India Services (AIS), which includes the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS).
The DoPT letter comes in the wake of a perceived shortage of AIS officers in Union ministries. It says the states “are not sponsoring an adequate number of officers for central deputation”, leading to a shortage in meeting Union government needs. Its earlier letters (on December 20 and 27 and January 7) soliciti comments from the states elicited limited response, prompting it to revise the proposal in the January 12 letter. Earlier last year, the DoPT had cautioned the states that not sending enough officers may affect future cadre review proposals. The Centre is apparently unable to fill vacancies at director and joint secretary levels in various Union ministries. Among the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) posts lying vacant, 390 are at joint secretary level (experience of 19-plus years) and 540 are for deputy secretary (nine years) or director ranks (14 years of service).
At stake now is the move to amend Rule 6 of the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, which governs central deputation in the IAS. According to it, an AIS officer can be posted at the Centre with the concurrence (no objection certificate) of the concerned state government. The DoPT asks states to send an annual list of names of AIS officers willing to go on central deputation, from which it then selects officers. The new proposal is prompted by a persistent shortage of officers on central deputation. As of January 1, 2021, only 458 IAS officers were on central deputation out of around 5,200 IAS officers in the country. Indeed, some states have nominated very few officers for deputation to the Centre. Madhya Pradesh (with just 24 of 370 IAS officers on central deputation), West Bengal (28 out of 298), Rajasthan (12 out of 241) and Telangana (9 out of 164) are conspicuous on this list (see Cadrewise Breakup of IAS Officers). In fact, actual deputation as a percentage of the mandated reserves fell from 69 per cent in 2014 to 30 per cent in 2021, suggesting that the DoPT has a valid concern.
EARLIER CHANGES
Continue reading your story on the app
Continue reading your story in the magazine
Congress: Now Or Never
The writing has been on the wall for eight years, but the congress has been wilfully blind. With oblivion threatening to become a very real possibility now, the party's Udaipur conclave becomes the first step in a long journey to avert a certain demise
The Long Shadow of Khalistan
THE ATTACK ON THE PUNJAB POLICE INTELLIGENCE HQ IS A REMINDER THAT THE KHALISTAN ISSUE IS STILL SIMMERING. THIS TIME THE SEPARATISTS ARE USING GANGSTERS TO DO THEIR DIRTY WORK
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STOCKS AND MUTUAL FUNDS?
THE BIG QUESTION
THIS DOG IS HAVING ITS DAY
Lean and mean, the Caravan and Pashmi are becoming prized as guard dogs and bringing their breeders a tidy profit in the villages of Latur in Maharashtra
THE JOYS OF SORROW
Pakistani Grammy Award-winner AROOJ AFTAB is helping us find pleasure in the plaintive
ONE STEP IN THEIR SHOES
THE PASSERBY, A PHOTO EXHIBITION OF INDIAN STREET SCENES, SHOWS US THE WORLDS WE ARE WALKING PAST
Player of our Heartstrings
No instrumentalist has done for their instrument what Pandit Shivkumar Sharma did for the santoor
STILL IN THE GROOVE
From playing an old-school romantic in Never Kiss Your Best Friend (ZEE5) to the profit-driven head of an app in Escaype Live (Disney+Hotstar), Jaaved Jaaferi is showing he hasn’t lost his touch
REDRAWING THE MAP
J&K DELIMITATION
Photo Synthesis
Having just released a new book of photographs, Sunhil Sippy says the camera saved his life
Facebook Parent Meta Creates Powerful AI Supercomputer
Facebook’s parent company Meta said it has created what it believes is among the fastest artificial intelligence supercomputers running today.
Customers Love Her Olive Oil. Can She Meet Rising Expectations?
John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, talks retail expansion and new product development with fellow Texas entrepreneur Aishwarya Iyer, founder of olive oil upstart Brightland.
NAVIGATION BRIEFING
MIKE BROUGHTON ON SAILING IN FOG
Valuing Vanadinite
WITNESS TO MOROCCO’S MODERN MINING RUSH
BROADCASTING The Blessings
Paula Bryant Ellis, mother to actor Jay Ellis, went from managing multimillion-dollar budgets to producing priceless inspirational content
Engine Room Fire Disables Canadian Bulk Carrier Near Detroit
The Canada-flagged bulk carrier Tecumseh lost propulsion and briefly went adrift in the Detroit River after a fire in the engine room.
Aislinn Derbez
Sin lugar a dudas no podíamos pensar en una figura más representativa para hablar del tema familiar. Aislinn ha estado en el ojo público desde adolescente, la hemos visto crecer y desarrollarse como actriz, empresaria y mamá.
Aislinn: Actitud y empoderamiento
Con estilo y autenticidad, la actriz nos transmite el verdadero significado del empowerment femenino a través de sus diferentes facetas como mujer.
Cortex Combines VHF, AIS And Vessel Monitoring
Marine VHF radio has long been a communications device that just works.
Voces que trascienden
Zuria Vega y Aislinn Derbez protagonizan su papel más retador y notable, moviéndose al punto de convertirse en agentes de cambio para causas imperativas como la normalización de la lactancia.