Jharkhand will have to wait for six more years to end its drought of IAS officers and fulfil the sanctioned posts of 208 officers after the Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC) allocation of eight officers per year for the State in order to end the scarcity of IAS officers. At present there are only 116 officers available in Jharkhand against the sanctioned posts of 208 IAS officers.
“If the quota of eight IAS officers per year fixed by the UPSC is adhered sincerely all vacant posts will get saturated by the year 2020,” said a senior official in the personnel department.
The State, going through acute crisis of IAS officers, finally has resorted to giving additional charges to its existing lot of top bureaucrats, putting extra burden on them which ultimately hinders the development works.
Moreover, promotion of 31 state civil services officers is still pending even after the High Court pulling up the State Government for its lackadaisical attitude in the promotion of only one officer from non-civil services to IAS cadre in the last eight years.
The High Court Bench of acting Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice S Chandrasekhar had observed that the State Government did not want its officers to get promoted to IAS cadre due to which the implementation of central schemes gets held up hindering the development work in the State.
The matter was taken up by the high court after it took a suo motto cognizance in March 2012.
According to an official estimate, there were 208 sanctioned cadre posts of IAS officers in the state while there are only 116 officers available , leading to a shortage of around 82 officers of its actual required strength.
“Out of the actual cadre post of 208 IAS in the state, our actual strength is 116 as 14 officers presently are on central deputation,” said Principal Secretary in the department of Personal Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha SK Satpathy.
According to Satpathy, promotion of State Civil Services officers into IAS cadre is likely to be done within a month as all decks have been cleared for it. “The process has been started and the files are being forwarded in order to expedite the process. It is expected to be cleared in a month of so,” said Satpathy.
A top level official in the state government also revealed that 2005 batch of Jharkhand Civil Services officers were the last one to be promoted to IAS rank after which promotion of a handful of officers have been kept on hold by the State Government.
Jharkhand Administrative Officers Association (JHASA) has also been demanding timely promotion of its officers to IAS cadre as the number of such officials is increasing gradually.
“Since the file is pending with the Chief Minister, after the matter was disposed by the Jharkhand High Court on May 23, we expect that it will be forwarded to the UPSC soon after being cleared, said JHASA president U Narayan.