The Mamata Banerjee government has released only seven IAS officers for Central deputation though around 82 bureaucrats belonging to Bengal cadre are supposed to be sent to the Union Government for taking up new assignments there.

As per the “Central Deputation Reserve” agreed between the Centre and Bengal government, the state is required to provide 82 IAS officers from its cadre for the Central deputation service but only about 8.5% of the required pool has been released so far by the state secretariat Nabanna.

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Against this backdrop, the Chief Minister wrote yet another letter to the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi on 20 January requesting him to drop the move to amend the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954 after the Government of India (GoI) decided to insert a strong provision in the rules allowing New Delhi to take out any officer immediately bypassing reservations from states, which are not adhering to the Cadre Management Rules giving provisions of sharing of officers between the Centre and the states.

The seven officers who are already on Central deputation from West Bengal are Tallen Kumar, Indevar Pandey, S Kishore,Chandan Sinha, Vivek Bharadwaj, Puneet Yadav and Manmeet Nanda. A retired IAS officer felt that the Bengal government has completely failed to handle cadre management of IAS officers maintaining rationality and impartiality.

For instance, many important departments are headed by ‘very junior IAS officers’ in gross violation of the rules. Several officers in the rank of Principal Secretaries and Additional Chief Secretaries (ACS) have been given charge of less important departments virtually without any work, he said, requesting anonymity. And there are many officers holding two or three portfolios simultaneously while their seniors are underutilized, felt another retired bureaucrat.

A large number of junior officers are unhappy with the cadre management system by the Bengal government while many of their newly appointed colleagues are not getting posted as Sub Divisional Officers (SDO) for months virtually denying them scope to gather administrative experience.

Virtually disgruntled with ‘irrational attitude’ of the state government many officers look for opportunities to serve the GoI on Central deputation while many others who are already empanelled are awaiting clearance from Nabanna for months. There has been a trend of decreasing representation of IAS officers from Bengal up to Joint Secretary (JS) level in the Centre. This trend is also reported in several other states also.This has practically forced New Delhi to amend the IAS (Cadre) rules as a last resort, felt the retired bureaucrats.

The focus point of the further draft amendment proposal is that the Central Government may choose to take any officer out of a state for posting in any part of the country even if his/her state government does not give clearance for his posting in GoI. The amendments further go on to provide for the release of the officer from his/her current assignment forthwith if the state government refuses to give its nod.

Earlier on 13 January, Miss Banerjee had written first letter earlier to the PM urging him to withdraw the proposed amendment. A senior bureaucrat felt that the discrimination meted out by state government against some officers may end, as these officers can now be picked up by the GoI without the consent of the state government. Overall, many officers seem to be happy with the proposed amendment, as it would give them a career option in the larger national canvas.