18 in top layer of 30 IAS officers on Central deputation, Delhi posting
Excelsior Special Correspondent
JAMMU, May 6: Leave and deputations of various types is a routine feature in State bureaucracy and All India Services but Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed unprecedented escapism among babus in Omar Abdullah-led coalition Government. With one or the other reason—some would call it excuse—as many as 18 bureaucrats in the top rung of 30 are currently either on Central deputation or a New Delhi posting, with or without their choice. This does not essentially lead to adhocism and stop gap arrangement in the non-IAS and other State services but sets a trend of harnessing or burdening public servants with multiple portfolios.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s sustained efforts to bring back at least 10 of these ‘deputationists’ have not born fruit. Some of them returned but went back after brief spells of ‘cooling period’. Sections in bureaucracy insist that egoism of certain influential politicians and top ranking bureaucrats is a major reason of the exodus of babus. They assert that escapism has never been in the blood of Indian bureaucracy and officers of central civil and police services have not shied away from working in the worst possible hostile conditions in the insurgency riddled J&K, Punjab and North-East in the last 30 years.
Why does, then, every other IAS officer look towards Delhi?
Most of the Ministers seem to be unanimous over the impression that many of the IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers don’t have a strong commitment to their allotted State. Examples are galore where these officers have never or seldom taken a challenging field posting. There are Principal Secre-taries and Commissioner-Secretaries, IGPs and DIGs, CCFs and CFs who have spent most of their initial 20 years of service outside Jammu & Kashmir. They have been intermittently surfacing in Srinagar and Jammu with varied intervals but by the time people here begin remembering their names, they land back in a ‘Central deputation’. They have no hesitation to call their days in J&K as ‘cooling period’.
Of the 18 IAS officers posted outside J&K, quite a number have managed to extend their period of deputation or New Delhi posting with different reasons and excuses. Two-and-a-half years short of his superannuation, Parvez Dewan has been officially on ‘study leave’ for the last seven years now. His chances of returning to J&K appear to be remote as, being now an empanelled Secretary to Government of India (Secretary Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs), he can not come back for any posting other than the State’s Chief Secretary.
Other IAS officers of the rank of Financial Comm- issioner, Principal Sec- retary and Commissioner-Secretary in J&K Govern- ment include Anil Goswami (Special Secretary in Ministry of Home Affairs), Pankaj Jain, Arun Kumar (with his 1979 IAS batch mate and wife Sonali Kumar holding a nominal posting in Resident Comm- issioner’s office in New Delhi), P G Dhar Chakravarty, A K Angurana, Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, L D Jha, P K Tripathi, S K Naik, Arun Kumar Mehta, Umang Narula, Raj Kumar Goel (Principal Resident Com- missioner), Ashok Parmar and Dheeraj Gupta. A number of IAS officers, falling in middle rungs of bureaucracy like Rohit Kansal and Shailendar Kumar, have also exhausted their period and managed to extend their Central deputation.
In IFS too, quite a large number of senior and middle ranking officers are currently on Central deputation and in no mood to return back to Jammu and Kashmir. One of them was posted as CCF Eco Forest during his ‘cooling period’ but did not work for a day till he returned back to another Central deputation. With that, prose and poetry of ‘Eco Tourism’ among the bureaucrats and politicians died its own death. Another couple of IFS officers, Mohit Gera and Neelu Gera, are known for their enchantment with Dehradun.
It is natural that when multiple portfolios of the men in top rungs of IAS, IPS and IFS becomes a routine, local officers—particularly those in KAS, different non-KAS State services, including PDD, PWD, Forest and Health—struggle to get for themselves ‘additional charge’ of vacant positions. Many of them find it easy to secure charge of higher substantive positions, one rank up or even two rank up, as “stop gap arrangement”. It is because of this that many of the State’s Assistant Engineers function as Executive Engineers, Super- intendent Engineers and Chief Engineers on “temporary basis”.
“They remain officially posted in their own pay and grade but enjoy all privileges of Chief Engineers”, said an insider. He counted dozens of the Assistant Directors functioning as Directors and Range Officers and ACFs working as Divisional Forest Officers without their substantive elevation to higher positions. It has been observed that Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs) do not meet or clear the officials for promotion for several years. Even in police and many other departments, in-situ promotion of officials (a matter of right after putting in nine years of continuous, unblemished regular service) does not happen until recommendations pour in from officers and politicians.
Amid zero-accountability, senior officers and bureaucrats manning top positions in different departments find themselves under no compulsion or constraint to refer vacancies to Public Service Commission and non-gazetted recruiting agencies. When, sometimes, they are pulled up, albeit non-seriously, by the Government, they refer a few vacancies and conceal others. Some of them succeed in misleading their political bosses with misinterpretation of some Planning Commission of India directives for stabilization of non-plan expenditure. With over 40,ooo existing posts being vacant and no reorganization happening in departments in the last 30 or 40 years, these ‘babus’ convince even the Chief Minister that PC had called for “strict austerity in appointments”.
As this malaise remains unchecked, a many departments and Government organisations—most disturbingly PDD and Forest—have exhausted their professional and technical manpower. Had the Government not recruited 40 ACFs (many of them had already gone to more prestigious fields) and 9 Range Officers, that happened just one after 1984, Forest and related departments, including State Forest Corporation, would have to be locked for want of a single technically trained officer in the next 10 years.
There are clear indications that many of the politicians and officials have discovered a goldmine of vested interest in the existing era of escapism of IAS, IPS and IFS officers and the adhocism and “stop gap arrangement” that is eating into the vitals of State services for decades now. It has come to Omar Abdullah’s Government by default and inheritance.
People of extensive exposure in the matters of governance and administration believe that this rot would have to be arrested in a no-nonsense manner and with clarity of political will, encapsulated in the ruling National Conference’s Election Manifesto as well as Vision Document. One-time absorption of all technically trained professionals, whose number is believed to be less than 5,000 currently, is projected as the solution. DPCs in all departments shall have to be conducted in a timeframe and officials promoted to substantive positions.
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