IAS Cadre Rules Centre Vs States

New Delhi’s demand that AIS officers do mandatory central deputation is primed to become another Centre-states dispute

- Amarnath K. Menon

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).