Major decision to overcome shortage of officers
Out of 137, only 59 in place, 15 of them on deputation
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 9: In a major attempt to overcome shortage of IAS officers in Jammu and Kashmir, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has decided to depute 17 more officers of All India Services (AIS) to the Union Territory which will be followed by some more shortly.
“Deployment of 17 more AIS officers in Jammu and Kashmir will help overcome shortage of the officers to some extent,” official sources told the Excelsior and said the new officers will be joining the UT shortly on completion of formalities and issuance of formal orders of their postings.
Pending formal notification of just undertaken Cadre Review in Jammu and Kashmir, the UT has sanctioned strength of 137 posts of IAS officers including 75 Direct Recruits and 62 from induction of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Services (JKAS) into IAS.
However, as against 137 posts, only 59 IAS officers have been posted in Jammu and Kashmir. And, out of them, seven senior IAS officers are on Central deputation while eight have been deputed to the Union Territory of Ladakh, totaling 15 which means J&K has only 44 IAS officers at present.
On record, J&K shows 60 IAS officers including those on deputation to Centre and Ladakh but the actual number is 59 as Shah Faesal, whose name is also shown in the list has resigned from the services but his resignation hasn’t been accepted.
Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Dr Jitendra Singh, Incharge DoPT had written several times to the Jammu and Kashmir administration for Cadre Review to increase sanctioned strength of the AIS officers. However, last month after nearly 15 years, the J&K administration conducted the Cadre Review which will help the Union Territory administration to quite an extent.
“The placement of 17 more AIS officers in Jammu and Kashmir is a significant decision taken by the DoPT. Formal orders of their postings are likely to be issued shortly. This will help J&K to tide over the shortage of officers,” the sources said.
They added that out of 75 Direct Recruit strength of IAS officers in Jammu and Kashmir so far, 57 officers are in place. However, from among the quota of 62 IAS officers from inductions of JKAS, only two are serving presently because of delay in induction of JKAS officers into IAS as no inductions have taken place for past about a decade.
“It was only few months back that the Jammu and Kashmir Government had initiated the process for induction of 40 JKAS officers into IAS. The process is almost in the final stage now,” sources pointed out.
They said the real shortage of IAS officers in Jammu and Kashmir will be overcome once 40 JKAS officers are inducted into IAS. This will take number of inducted IAS officers in J&K from 2 to 42.
The Government is confident that process of induction of JKAS officers into IAS will be completed with the start of next year.
As already reported by the Excelsior, present dispensation of Jammu and Kashmir had initiated the process of induction of around 40 JKAS officers into IAS in the month of April this year and hoped to complete the exercise in November-December. Sources, however, said that the exercise is progressing smoothly and is likely to be completed with start of the next year.
The IAS officers from Jammu and Kashmir, who are presently on Central deputation, include Pradip Kumar Tripathi, Sudanshu Panday, Sundeep Kumar Nayak, Raj Kumar Goyal, Shantmanu, Ashok Kumar Parmar and Dr Mandeep K Bhandari.
The IAS officers, who have been posted in the Union Territory of Ladakh, are Umang Narula, Pawan Kotwal, Saurabh Bhagat, Ajeet Kumar Sahu, Saugat Biswas, Ravinder Kumar, Shrikant Balasaheb Suse and Santosh Sukhadeve.
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