Central deputation fails to lure Punjab IAS, IPS officers

Central deputation, often considered an assured step for career progression, seems to have lost its charm for the IAS and IPS officials from Punjab.

Once considered a challenging state — mostly during the militancy era — to work in, the bureaucrats and the police officers, seem to find the going easy in Punjab now — something that can be gauged from the fact that from the current crop only two IAS officers have submitted willingness to go on central deputation. No IPS officer has opted for central posting.

Of the two IAS officers, RC Nayar, Principal Secretary (Labour), is willing to join as additional secretary in Centre while Dr Roshan Sunkaria has opted for deputation to the post of Executive Director, Food Corporation of India. Another IAS officer, Anurag Aggarwal, too had applied applied for a posting in FCI but later withdrew his application.

While those in know of things say officers are unwilling to leave Punjab owing to the comfortable postings here, senior government officials blame it on the lack of numbers.

The sanctioned cadre strength for Punjab is 221 IAS and 172 IPS officers and a maximum of 20 per cent of the officers can go on deputation. The state is functioning with 180 IAS and 142 IPS officers.

At present 15 Punjab cadre IAS officers are on central deputation. These include Anjuli Chib Duggal (1981), NS Kalsi (1984), Kalpana Mittal (1985) and Ravneet Kaur (1988). The state government has already to written to centre to relieve Ravneet, on deputation for the last eight years, "as her services are needed in the state".

Among others are Alok Shekhar (1994) posted as Director, Civil Aviation; Rahul Bhandari as Private Secretary of Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Bhandari's wife Rakhee Gupta Bhandhari also attached with Bansal, KAP Sinha (1992) posted as private secretary to Union Minister Preneet Kaur and Tejveer Singh (1994) and his wife Jaspreet Talwar (1995) on deputation in IAS Academy, Mussorie. Also MP Singh, a PCS officer of 2005 batch is posted as Additional Private Secretary to Preneet Kaur.

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