Central deputation of three J&K cadre officers on cards
Central deputation of three or four IAS officers of the former Jammu & Kashmir cadre, who are now in AGMUT cadre, is reportedly imminent, even as the Union Territory is facing shortage of a number of the regular recruit civil servants.
According to the highly placed bureaucratic sources, following the receipt of the No Objection Certificate (NOC), the Government of India is likely to order the Central deputation of three to four J&K cadre IAS officers with their posting in different departments in the current month.
Those already cleared for the Central deputation include Principal Secretary General Administration Department (GAD), Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Chief Electoral Officer Jammu & Kashmir, Hirdesh Kumar Singh, and the batch-2010 topper Dr. Shah Faesal. Sources said that the UT Government has already issued NOC to their Central deputation.
However, for reasons not known to anybody in the Civil Secretariat, the UT Government has withheld the NOC in favour of the batch-2009 IAS officer Sushma Chauhan who had already proceeded on leave. It is not immediately clear whether the government would issue the NOC in her favour before the competent authority’s meeting to consider such proposals.
Ms. Chauhan has, apart from holding other positions, functioned as Deputy Commissioner in Reasi, Samba and Jammu districts. She is currently an officer of Secretary to Government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mr. Dwivedi has been cleared for his second Central deputation on his own request. An officer of the batch-1997, he is currently Principal Secretary GAD since 2 January 2020. After Navin Kumar Choudhary’s transfer to Mizoram in May this year, Dwivedi has been holding the additional charge of the administrative secretary of Health and Medical Education.
Hirdesh Kumar Singh, an IAS officer of batch-1999, currently posted as Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the Jammu and Kashmir since 17 March 2020, with additional charge of Commissioner-Secretary Election Department, has also been cleared for the Central deputation. He has served as administrative Secretary in different departments including Power Development Department.
The J&K Government’s official website shows Dr. Shah Faesal as ‘awaiting orders of posting in the General Administration Department’. However, bureaucratic sources insist that he too has been cleared for the Central deputation four months back. In the year 2019, when he was on study leave in the United States of America, Dr. Faesal resigned from his IAS service. He launched a regional political party under the banner of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement (JKPM) in March 2019. However, he was taken into custody and detained under Public Safety Act (PSA) while attempting to fly to the USA via Turkey in August 2019.
After his release less than a year latter, Faesal resigned from his party. Making a volte face, he turned into a strong supporter of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Early this year, he moved an application seeking permission to withdraw his resignation which was duly granted by the Centre in coordination with the UT Government.
Facing shortage of IAS officers, government has brought J&K at par with other States and UTs with raising the allocation of the regular recruit IAS officers from 50% to 67%. On the other, the allocation of the J&K Administrative Service officers into the IAS, by induction, has been reduced from 50% to only 33%. Since, the induction of the JKAS officers remained frozen for about 12 years, the Government has lately inducted 16 JKAS officers into the IAS. They include 8 officers who had since retired from the service.
In all, induction of 28 JKAS officers had been approved on recommendation of the UT Government and the Union Government’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Of them, 8 had retired from service, one died and the opinion about one officer was in sealed cover because of an inquiry against him. Two of the JKAS officers declined to accept the induction.
Those inducted from JKAS into the IAS included Talat Parvez Rohella, Commissioner-Secretary Hospitality & Protocol, Rukhsana Gani, Chairperson J&K Special Tribunal and Rehana Batool, Commissioner-Secretary Public Grievances, Tariq Ali Mir, Director General Women & Child Development, Amit Sharma, Secretary Administrative Reforms and Inspections, Nazim Zai Khan, Secretary Disaster Management, Relief and Rehabilitation, Shakeelur Rehman Rather, Food Safety Commissioner and Pradeep Kumar, Director Archives, Archeology and Museums.
Sources said that the government was also planning to get 12-15 more IAS officers of AGMUT cadre on deputation to Jammu and Kashmir in the near future.
