Already operating at 46% of strength, Centre needs 16 more IAS officers From J&K
14 of 68 officers are currently on central deputation or trainings
Zafar Choudhary. Updated: 7/10/2019 10:01:07 AM

Already operating at 46% of cadre strength,
Centre needs 16 more IAS officers from J&K
14 of 68 officers are currently on central deputation or trainings

ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
JAMMU: With fourteen top officers of the Indian Administrative Service already on deputations away from the state, the Government of India wants Jammu and Kashmir to spare sixteen more officers to serve at the Centre.
The Ministry of Personnel, which operates directly under the Prime Minister, has noted that the Centre is facing crunch of IAS officers as not many bureaucrats from the state cadres were interested in serving at the Centre.
The Personnel Ministry has shot off letters to the state governments asking them to ensure that adequate number officers are nominated for central deputation. The central deputation will help officers gain relevant experience and also ensure their career progression, the Personnel Ministry said.
Jammu and Kashmir’s quota of Central Deputation Reserve is 30 while as only 14 persons are on the deputation at the moment. The Centre has desired that state to send 16 more.
Seven of the ten senior-most IAS of Jammu and cadre are currently on the central deputation and their current postings are the following: BR Sharma, Secretary Border Management, Ministry of Home Affairs; Rakesh Gupta, Secretary, Union Public Service Commission; PK Tripathi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Personnel; Sudhanshu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce; Sandeep Kumar Nayak, MD, NCDCI; Raj Kumar Goyal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and Shantmanu, Development Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles.
Jammu and Kashmir is already short of officers in the higher bureaucracy. While the present cadre strength of IAS in Jammu and Kashmir is 145 (as revised in 2016), there are only 68 officers available to the state, four of them are currently under training.
In December 2018, the Ministry of Personnel had asked all states to send officers for appointment on deputation to the posts under central staffing scheme and for the posts of chief vigilance officers (CVOs) who act as distant arms of the Central Vigilance Commission to check corruption in central public sector enterprises.
Six months later, the number of nominations received so far has been ranging from 'Nil' to an insignificant number. “Attention in this regard is also invited to the extremely low representation of officers from various cadres/services under central staffing scheme especially at DS/director level," the ministry said in a communique.
Every cadre is allowed a deputation reserve to ensure that officers have the opportunity to work on deputation including that under the central staffing scheme, which adds to their experience, it said.
The ministry had shared figures with the states showing "adequate number of officers" were not being nominated to work at the Centre.
According to the data, eight IAS officers of West Bengal cadre were working at the Centre against their central deputation reserve of 78.
Similarly, 44 IAS officers of Uttar Pradesh cadre were working at the Centre as against 134. As few as 20 IAS officers of Karnataka were working at the Centre against the strength of 68.
Chhattisgarh has sent seven IAS officers against 38, Madhya Pradesh has nominated 27 against 90, Bihar has sent 36 such bureaucrats against 74 and Odisha has nominated 20 against 51.
A total of 19 IAS officers were working at the Centre against the strength of 81 from West Bengal, Haryana has sent 12 against 44, Gujarat has nominated 17 against 64, Andhra Pradesh has sent 18 against 46 and Jammu and Kashmir has sent 14 IAS officers against 30.
The central government has also decided to appoint 40 private sector specialists at the posts of deputy secretary and director, considered as crucial decision-making levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

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