Ministers in the Modi Government will have to be careful in appointing Officers on Special Duty (OSD) and Private Secretaries (PS). The appointment of special staff for several Union Ministers, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh has been put on hold.
According to official sources, the decision is understood to have been taken in the wake of a circular from the Personnel Department that appointments of personal staff of Ministers, including PS and OSD should be cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. The circular was sent to all secretaries by Department of Personnel and Training on May 26 stating that for appointment of a PS the ACC’s approval is required.
“All Ministries and departments are, therefore, advised to ensure strict compliance of procedures for all appointments, including OSD in the personal staff of Ministers,” it said. They have been instructed not to offers these offices to babus who served the previous UPA Government in the same capacity. Sources said that Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s recently-appointed PS Alok Singh, who is an IPS officer of the 1995 batch from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, may have to move out because he was earlier PS to UPA External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.
Sources said that several other babus who have been reappointed as OSDs and PS’ by the NDA Ministers, will be shifted out. The list could include, sources said, such staffers as appointed by Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah, and Cabinet and Minister of State for Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju and GM Siddheshwara as well as PS to Minister of State for Home, Kiren Rijiju. An IPS officer of Uttarakhand cadre, Abhinav Kumar, was earlier PS to Shashi Tharoor. Similarly, Vinita Srivastava, an IRTS officer, now OSD to HRD Minister Smriti Irani, had served UPA Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma in the same capacity.