Jammu, Dec 18: Jammu and Kashmir, which recently won the distinction of being a state least interested in reshuffling its Babus has another peculiarity – among the top 20 IAS officers around 13 are serving with Government of India on deputation while only six were rendering their services in the state.
Informed sources told Greater Kashmir that the `deputation mania’ continues to plague the state administration, already reeling under severe shortage of IAS officers as most of them prefer to serve in various ministries in New Delhi.
Out of the top IAS officers, from 1977 to 1988 batches- Madhav Lal, presently Chief Secretary, Muhammad Iqbal Khanday, Dr Arun Kumar, Krishan Ballabh Aggarwal, Brij Raj Sharma, Bharat Bushan Vyas and Suresh Kumar were the only officers presently serving in the state.
Interestingly, out of top five IAS officers only two are serving in the state while three others, including Parvez Dewan, Anil Gowami and Pankaj Jain were presently on central deputation.
The other officers serving with GoI included Sonali Kumar, PG Dhar Chakarborty, Ashok Kumar Angurana, Khurhid A Ganai, Parmod Kumar Jain, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Lokesh Dutt Jha, Pradip Kumar Tripathi, Sudhanshu Panday and Sandeep Kumar Nayak.
Sources in the civil secretariat claimed that GoI deputation remained the preferred choice of top administrative brass in Jammu and Kashmir affecting the delivery of services to the masses.
“How can you expect good performance on ground when you have majority of the officers with Higher Administrative Grade on central deputation”, a senior government functionary quipped adding; “Interestingly the entire administration in the state was being run by those officers with Super-Time Scale, officers in third level of the administrative hierarchy (after Financial Commissioner and Higher Administrative Grade Scale).
The state is already facing severe shortage of the IAS officers. Presently around one-third of sanctioned posts are vacant in the state, which has a total sanctioned strength of 137 IAS officers. The cadre strength of J&K was reviewed in 2009.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
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