The Row Over Officers: Centre Must Not Take Unilateral Decisions
The India Commentary view
View all posts by this Author
By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-01-26 15:19:21
About the Author
The India Commentary view
View all posts by this Author
The latest row between the Centre and the states over the changes in the IAS/IPS cadre rules could have been avoided if the Centre had explained its problems to the states and had asked for their opinion on overcoming them in a spirit of federalism. But it went ahead to draft the changes unilaterally and sent them to the states, triggering an angry response from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and dissenting notes from some other states, including those under BJP rule.
It is obvious that when the existing rules call for consultation and cooperation between the Centre, the states and the officers concerned when any officer from the state pool is deputed for Central duty, any change (making it mandatory for states to make a certain number of officers available to the Centre) that makes the Centre the sole decision-maker is likely to be opposed.
There is no denying that there is a problem. The Centre needs good officers to run the government. But so do the states. The Centre is facing a shortage of officers as reports suggest that the number of officers in central deputation reserve has gone down from 309 in 2011 to just 223 now. The percentage of mid-level IAS officers posted at the Centre has also come down from 19% in 2014 to 10% now. The Centre cannot be expected to function efficiently with shortage of officers. But neither can the states if more officers are deputed to the Centre than the states can optimally release.
A solution needs to be found urgently and it will not be found by the Centre unilaterally imposing itself on the states and snatching officers. A short term solution must be found through consultation between the Centre and the states. It needs to be identified if some states have more officers than they need. In the long term, more officers need to be recruited through the UPSC Civil Services examinations to ensure equitable distribution of officers between the Centre and the states. The need for having an exclusive pool of Central cadre officers can also be examined.
